Kenosha Unified School District Headquarters (File Photo by Kevin Mathewson, Kenosha County Eye)
A 41-year-old English teacher at Tremper High School in Kenosha is suing his employer, the Kenosha Unified School District, in Kenosha County Circuit Court. In the lawsuit filed on April 1, 2024, Mark P. Wisniewski lists an address in Kenosha where he resides – but in truth, he resides at the Kenosha County Jail.
That’s because Wisniewski is serving a 6-month jail sentence for his third OWI conviction. Alarming to parents of Tremper students, KUSD allows Wisniewski to commute between Tremper high School and the jail to teach, ankle monitor in tow. Wisniewski led Kenosha Police on a one-mile chase with a blood alcohol content of .300 – almost four times the legal limit. He told police he didn’t stop because he “didn’t have insurance.” This wasn’t his first OWI. It was his third. Unsurprising to people familiar with KUSD policy, all three OWIs were obtained by Wisniewski while he was employed by the Kenosha Unified School District. KUSD said in a statement to KCE that “This employee’s conviction is not substantially related to their employment and, therefore, disciplinary action will not be issued.”
KCE, however asked for Wisniewski’s disciplinary file on March 11, 2024. We wanted to see if driving drunk and running from the cops was his only guilty pleasure. Under Wisconsin law, government employees, like Wisniewski have the right to ask a judge to seal their disciplinary documents from the public – but it is an extremely unique occurance. A leading public records attorney, Tom Kamenick of the Wisconsin Transparency project, has never seen such a request granted.
After a disciplinary file of a government employee is requested under the Wisconsin’s public records law, the government must send the employee a “Woznicki Letter.” The term is phrased after a 1996 Supreme Court ruling, Woznicki v. Erickson. The supreme court ruled that government employees’ personnel files are public record. This letter tells the employee that they have 10 days to notify the government that they intend to to enjoin, or stop the government from releasing the disciplinary documents.
KCE has filed more than 100 requests for disciplinary files from cops, teachers, firefighters government bureaucrats and others. Only once was a Woznicki challenge implemented. This was done by John Steinbrink Jr., the embattled former Public Works Director for Pleasant Prairie. KCE won that case and KCE will win this case.
Woznicki challenges are for instances in which the government employee’s health or safety is at risk, not to protect from embarrassment for bad decisions and misconduct.
Gimbel Reilly Guerin & Brown LLP
Wiznieeski’s Attorney is Christopher R. Vandeventer of Gimbel Reilly Guerin & Brown LLP. He’s been an attorney for less than two years – perhaps the reason why he agreed to take a frivoulous and unwinnable case. According to Vanderventer, “Wisniewski’s reputational interests outweigh any interest the public may have to inspect or release the contents of the requested records because the requested records contain misleading and inaccurate information.”
Wisniewski, seemingly biting the hand that feeds him, is accusing KUSD of disciplining him unjustly and lying about the circumstances of his conduct. He is saying all this, to an employer that is allowing him to educate our community’s youth with serving jail time.
The original court date was scheduled for August, but Judge Circuit Court Judge Frank Gagliardi agreed today to move up the court date to this month. Statute gives the court up to 30 days to make a decision. Kevin Mathewson, KCE’s editor, has a statutory right to intervene in this case, and has already filed a motion to do just that. Mathewson doesn’t trust KUSD’s terrible attorneys to zealously defend its decision to release the records to KCE.
Of course, after we are successful, we will be releasing the documents here on KCE.
45 Responses
How is he getting to and from work? Isn’t his license gone by now?
The school bus! Well, he has to ride the short bus
*license.
His attorney will be more than happy to take his money.
Your reporting is woefully inaccurate.
I’m always happy to be corrected. Please enlighten me
We will listen but you will have to present name an credentials or it will be just an option that requires not facts. We wait.
*option.
Should be. opinion
Duh
You just know this is wisnewski himself posting anonymously
How so ?
Ok. Then tell us what is inaccurate with documents to prove KCE is incorrect. We are all eyes and ears! Kevin is a pretty humble person. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t mind you letting him know where he may have missed something.
Thanks to the school board he still has a job teaching young minds, but now he wants to sue KUSD. Great job at wasting more of taxpayers money (possible lawsuit) you idiots should be fired Kudos to the idiots that reelected them in election.
One of the greatest mysteries in life is why liberals are soft on crime and are so willing to forfeit their rights to feel safe (think Covid lockdowns).
Good lord, Kevin. I enjoy your extremely thorough investigations of people and events, but enough with this guy. He is a drunk, not a child molester (although KUSD does not care about that either). Let the poor guy be, he is trying to support himself and his family. This is Wisconsin, no one cares about drinking.
I’m always amused by the keyboard warriors who like to tell Kevin what to do and how to run his business. Pro tip: he doesn’t give a fuck.
Good Lord, anonymous (always capitalize the Lord’s name)–are you related to Wisniewski? We all care about drinking in Wisconsin, especially drunks who drive
Up until now, anyway.
How does the public know what he is? Kevin is an investigative reporter, and I see no problem him looking into this situation. Should he find nothing, what would the harm be? It’s Wisniewski who made the request public with this suit, not Kevin. I appreciate Kevin’s efforts to do the sniffing when there’s someone teaching our kids, who may not smell quite right. I’m on the fence regarding whether it’s a problem letting him teach if it’s “just” the drunk driving issue. On one hand, lots of other people get Huber law to go to work when in jail, but when they are a repeat offender, is there a safety issue? What if Huber time becomes Miller Time?
Comedy is hard .
I suppose in order for someone like you to care about someone drinking and driving, someone you love would need to be killed by a drunk driver, otherwise, it’s all good, right?
No ones cares??? I care! Wait until YOUR loved one is killed by a THREE time drunk driver. You just may change your tune.
Until he finally kills someone driving drunk. Since it’s not a big deal, we can hope it’s you he does it to.
Not only should Wisniewski be serving a longer prison time, he should lose his driver’s license permanently and be removed from his teaching position. Furthermore, the effete Jeff Weiss should be fired along with most of the school board for keeping on such derelict teachers at the KUSD
Prison time? Certainly for a person CONVICTED of drunk driving multiple times.
If he is remanded to prison and can’t teach, that is of his own doing. Put the hammer down on him before he does kill someone with his negligence.
Lose license? Absolutely. Follow the law and REVOKE license upon his CONVICTION. I’m glad he’s on Huber because he is subject to being SOBER and checked on a daily basis.
Trial by PUBLIC OPINION? Nope. Sorry, the courts are here to prevent the mob mentality from taking over.
Removed from his teaching position? NOPE. Not for drunk driving. We don’t CANCEL people and DESTROY their CAREER because of something they did outside of work unless it is DIRECTLY related or impaired their employment.
Once the PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST is honored and the disciplinary file is made public – then and ONLY THEN will we know if his employability with KUSD is in question.
Until then, put down the pitchforks and torches. The TRUTH will set you free.
If he is working so diligently to keep his record sealed, there is something there that he is not proud of.
Once that is released – THEN judgement can be made on IF he should still be holding a teaching position.
THEN judgement SHOULD be made on the KUSD School Board and their handling of the situation.
Good on Kevin @KenoshaCountyEye for being the ONLY ACTUAL REPORTER in the area who bothers to DIG in and BRING THESE THINGS TO LIGHT.
And we wonder why the KUSD performance is a failure …
Oh!!! I don’t wonder!!!! People should pull all their kids out of school.
Abolish Teacher Unions
Abolish Public Schools
Add a Ball & Chain Ankle Bracelet to Wisniewski for his lack of remorse for his habitual public drunken behavior.
Homeschool
He is my favorite teacher !! He taught us how to shotgun a beer , tap a keg , and how to improve our beer chugging skills .🍺🍺🍺🍺
lol
KUSD loves groomers, pedophiles and drunks.
Drive past KUSD building on 52nd St. they are running out of parking spaces, they have more support staff than teachers on payroll. They tell us we needed more teachers but we have more support staff thank you school board for hiring all your cronies.
If his school disciplinary records are released and there’s nothing on there…. then he’s just a drunk wearing an ankle monitor and getting mommy to drive him to work.
If he has any offenses such as drunk in the classroom, excessive absenteeism for all the bingers or a bottle found in his desk, it is relevant.
Being a teacher who’s too drunk to function is ridiculous. But there are so many around you daily also endangering others. Tell the Tavern League how embarrassing it is by voting appropriately. (Our drunks get tickets and light jail/Huber time… other states lock them away)
I’d drink too if I had to be a teacher these days. Let the man be. He’s suffering enough. Hopefully he dries out in prison and gets some help.
It would be interesting to see what else might be in the file, i.e., any issues re: alcohol abuse.
KUSD might not be able to can him but if his issues impaired his ability to do his job maybe there would be a shot at it.
He obviously has missed the fact he is a public employee, so records are not private, under “open records.” Has he slept through all other educator cases in the news, Law Enforcement? Personnel records get shared. Surprising that an attorney would take the case. Is KEA helping foot the bill, though not specific to his clock time teaching?
This page is getting less and less relevant. You used to drop some better stories, with more relevancy. At the end of the day it’s a DUI, let’s find some better things to run.
How about the teacher that has a serious drinking problem teaching your child?
Haven’t the “Teachers” been teaching the DARE program to the students from early on in grade school?? Then the TREMPER High School ENGLISH teacher is ALLOWED to get THREE DUI’S, RUN from the cops and STILL teach all the children that were taught to say NO??!!! All the while, he’s allowed to commute back & forth from jail to teach students on a daily basis???? What in the actual fucksticks is happening in the KUSD????
Haven’t the “Teachers” been teaching the DARE program to the students from early on in grade school?? Then the TREMPER High School ENGLISH teacher is ALLOWED to get THREE DUI’S, RUN from the cops and STILL teach all the children that were taught to say NO??!!! All the while, he’s allowed to commute back & forth from jail to teach students on a daily basis???? What in the actual fucksticks is happening in the KUSD????
One OWI may be understandable. Three and he has a serious problem.
What’s the word on Christian Enwright grooming a 12/13 year old at Ktech West?!!!
School is still mum….
Stay tuned 😉
Oh, I am! Thanks
Sad I remember seeing him chain smoking and slamming beers at Ashlings circa 08.. Looks like shit hasn’t changed.