Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Tony Baez, Larry Miller And Paula Phillips Elected To Milwaukee Public School Board

Milwaukee Southside voters elected Dr. Tony Baez to the Milwaukee School Board in the 6th District making him the first Hispanic man to become a Board member.

By H. Nelson Goodson
Hispanic News Network U.S.A.

April 5, 2017

Milwaukee, WI - On Tuesday, Dr. Tony Baez was elected to the Milwaukee School Board and thanked his campaign staff including Carmen Cabrera, Sylvia Ortiz Velez, Luz Sosa, Virginio Miranda, Oscar Brenes, Milwaukee County Supervisor Marina Dimitrijevic, Pablo Baez, Maria Olaiz de Jenkins, Ernesto Ramirez, Adrian Chan, Justin Bielinski, Ivelis Perez, Cesar Cerna, Brandon Savage, Kyle Kummers and others who worked tirelessly to get Baez elected. The Baez campaign celebrated their success at Los Tres Hermanos Restaurant in Milwaukee's Southside.
Baez released the following statement, "The Wisconsin Working Families Party saw that a District Six victory could be key to creating a pro-public school majority on the school board as well as having a dedicated voice for Latino students. They recruited me to run, supporting me throughout the election progress. I’m proud to work with Working Families because we share a vision and a drive to support and deliver a quality education to all of the students in our diverse city,” said Dr. Tony Baez, the newly elected District Six member of the board. “Thanks to Working Families’ campaign support and community organizing, we’ve turned the tide in Milwaukee against privatization and charter schools."
Citizen Action of Wisconsin released a statement on their Facebook page that cooperative organizing members from the Acción de Ciudadana de Wisconsin (ACW) "volunteered over the last 6 weekends to help elect our member Tony Baez to the Milwaukee School Board." Luz Sosa is the community organizer for ACW.
Sosa says that the successful campaign to elect Baez to the MPS Board is attributed to volunteers and members of ACW to knock at more than 5,000 doors, made more than 1,000 calls to registered voters and had 250 shifts of volunteers during the campaign in the Milwaukee Southside Latino community MPS Board district 6.
Dr. Baez became the first Hispanic man to get elected as a Board member in District 6. Baez in the 1970's was one of the original designers who created the bilingual program in the Milwaukee Public Schools. In those days, Texas migrant workers sons and daughters including Mexican nationals and Puerto Ricans who arrived in Milwaukee and registered in MPS were looked upon students with a disability simply because they only spoke Spanish and were assigned to special education classes. The bilingual program managed to teach both Spanish and English to help students succeed in MPS.
Dr. Baez's 40-year experience in education and being one of the foremost bilingual program creators for MPS showed that his credentials as a former Vice-President of Academic Affairs and Provost at the Milwaukee Area Technical College and a progressive social consultant on education will make a difference at MPS. 
Other elected MPS Board members are Larry Miller (Dist. 5) who was re-elected, Paula Phillips (Dist. 7) and Annie Woodward (Dist. 4).
In other elections, Tony Evers running for Superintendent of Public Instruction easily won re-election for a third term. 
Kashoua "Kristy" Yang was elected to the Milwaukee County Circuit Court Branch 47 and Valarie Hill was re-elected to the Milwaukee Municipal Judge Branch 1. Yang became the first Hmong-American woman to be elected as Circuit Court judge in the State of Wisconsin and the second nationally.
The proposed Wheel Tax referendum in Milwaukee County to increase the vehicle registration for vehicles by $60 failed to passed.
Other elections in Dodge County, Raymond Caballero was elected as Fox Lake Clerk/Treasurer. Steven L. Gonzales became the elected Neosho Village President.
In Walworth County, Natalie Alvarez was elected as a Bloomfield Village Trustee.
In school district elections, Joy Corona was elected to an open seat for the Silver Lake/Salem Joint school district 1. In Shorewood, Pablo Muirhead was elected to the Shorewood School district 2.


Video of supporters and campaign staff for Dr. Tony Baez http://goo.gl/xbnFTm



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