Aaron Vehling

Gov. Jim Doyle echoed much of his Tuesday budget address during a stop at Eau Claire’s Northstar Middle School Friday – with one exception.

Doyle made no mention of the UW System, from which his proposed budget will slash $250 million if approved.

“It’s unfortunate that when (Doyle) talks about education, he talks about K-12, not K-16 or beyond,” said Student Senate President Sarah Schuh, who attended the news conference.

During his speech, Doyle focused primarily upon middle school education and the closing of the Northern Wisconsin Center for the Developmentally Disabled.

The closing of the Northern Center is part of Doyle’s proposal to eliminate some 2,900 state jobs in an effort to ease the state’s $3.2 billion budget deficit.

About 15 protestors lined Abbe Hill Drive, where Northstar is located, prior to Doyle’s news conference. They held signs and shouted at passing cars to protest the closing of the Northern Center.

After his Northstar stop, Doyle met with families affected by the center’s closing at North High School.

Vice Chancellor Andy Soll also attended Friday’s news conference at Northstar. He hadn’t planned to ask Doyle any questions about System funding, he said.

“I think it’s appropriate for us to defer to (those with concerns about the Northern Center) in this setting,” Soll said.

In addition, the governor came to Northstar primarily to focus on his middle school initiative, Soll said.

Doyle introduced his “Community Connection” program to the crowd at Northstar. The program seeks to improve relations between middle schools and the communities surrounding them, he said. In addition, the program will aim to close the “achievement gap” that often becomes wider during students’ middle school years.

Early education and head start programs often receive a lot of attention, as do graduation rates, Doyle said. But students’ middle school years are often among the most crucial, he said.

Soll said he attended Friday’s conference simply to listen to Doyle’s speech, and to answer questions anyone in the room might have had for him.

“I was here to hear what he had to say,” Soll said. “I didn’t come here to challenge the governor.”