The Baraboo School District held focus groups as part of a “Racism as a Public Health Issue” initiative that was exclusively for black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) middle schoolers, offering the minority students in attendance a $100 gift card plus a pizza party.
According to records obtained by The Wisconsin Daily Star, the public health session was part of a $35,000 grant issued to Public Health Sauk County by Governor Tony Evers’ Department of Health Services. The “Qualitative Data for Capacity Building and Alignment” grant program is aimed at engaging with community members or organizations representing “underserved communities in an authentic way,” according to the emails.