In a local David & Goliath story, Glenn Oleksak, of Kenosha, began his higher education at Gateway Technical College in the Fall of 2017. He is Autistic, and permanently disabled, according to court records, including a letter from his Physician. He asked the school to provide him with special accommodations each semester. Oleksak passed all classes in the first two years. That is, until Gateway gave him a failing grade in English Composition 1 in the Spring of 2019. This was suspicious, as his instructor gave him an “A” grade for his midterm and even commented “Keep up the good work”. Looking online, to the website ‘Blackboard’, Oleksak saw a final grade of 81%, which is a “B-“. When he received his report card, English Composition 1 was blank, indicating a fail.
Gateway then suspended Oleksak effective May 6, 2019 until the Spring semester of 2020. Oleksak says that he never had the chance to dispute any allegations leading to the suspension. Gateway alleged “academic dishonesty” without specific details. He says the school first sent notice to his Gateway email address, which he had no access to, since he was suspended. They also mailed a notice via US Mail to an incorrect address. Oleksak’s family, feeling he wasn’t treated fairly, hired a local attorney and the attorney quickly sent a letter to the school, asking for a new hearing. Neither Oleksak nor his attorney were notified of the new hearing date, and thus didn’t attend. Oleksak filed a lawsuit in Kenosha Circuit Court asking the College to:
-Make a declaration that it has violated Oleksak’s rights
-Reinstate Oleksak Immediately
-Suspension be expunged from his record and the “B-” reinstated
-Reasonable attorney Fees
Instead, Gateway College hired a very expensive law firm out of Milwaukee to defend its actions. Gateway has filed two motions for dismissal in court, and Kenosha Judge Kerkman denied both motions. Oleksak filed a motion for summary judgement. After almost two years in Circuit court, Kerkman recused himself and now-retired liberal Judge Mary K. Wagner ruled in Gateway’s favor after one short hearing. Now the case is in appeal. Gateway has spent more than $135,000 to defend this case. We reached out to Gateway President Bryan Albrecht and he didn’t respond to our request for comment. We also reached out to the board of trustees. They didn’t wish to comment either.
Gateway’s WGTD Political Forum Canceled
Tax-payer funded WGTD has canceled a political forum that was scheduled to be recorded later this month. That is, after KCE broke the story about WGTD employee Tyrone McDonald inciting rioting, looting and civil war. Many candidates reached out to KCE and told us that they weren’t going to participate citing conflicts of interest. Government employees like Tyrone McDonald cannot engage in political activities or electioneering while “on the clock”, but that is exactly what he has been doing the last few weeks. He’s been setting up a political forum for the upcoming local elections including City Council, County Board, School Board, and County Executive. The government cannot spend tax-payer resources influencing an election or engaging in political speech like KUSD did earlier this week. Pete Wicklund, the managing editor of the Kenosha News, moderated the KUSD debate. He is a left-leaning partisan. KUSD spent time, money and staff resources on this forum that was meant to influence the election. The City of Kenosha Mayor, John Antaramian quashed an attempt by the Kenosha Library to do the same thing.
In an email to a candidate on February 22, 2022 Gateway President Bryan Albrecht said that “Gateway was (no longer) hosting this (forum)”
KCE asked him for the reason and he told us “I believe the event coordinators have changed their approach.” We didn’t understand what he meant by that comment so we asked him to elaborate. He didn’t. Two of the three tax-payer funded political events have now been canceled. It is unknown if KUSD will continue to defy the law next election cycle.
Below are the Gateway trustees:
4 Responses
The leftists can’t hold back their bias on anything. How many years has GTC been holding this forum — decades. Now because the leftists decided to make this forum as a way to attack the candidates they don’t like, it has been cancelled. GTC deserves this because of the way they invented a false position of county exec candidate Samantha Kerkman at the primary forum, and then allowed the Democrats to lie about it all of their “news” station.
Where’s Mr. Oleksak’s instructor in all this? – the one who said, “Keep up the good work”? Never mind
“Gateway” as a whole – “Gateway” wasn’t teaching him.