Arriving at James Madison high school Thursday evening, teachers and parents wanted answers: Is Milwaukee Public School planning to close some of its buildings?
“You’re saying, ‘Merge a school together and give that one school more investment,’” the parent of a 12-year-old student said during the public town hall on MPS’s long-term facilities master plan. “Instead of investing in every school and community .”
Thursday night’s event in the auditorium of the James Madison Academic Campus in the northwest part of the city drew about 60 teachers, parents and other community members. It was the fourth in a series of six community meetings to gather public input on the plan.
Representatives from Perkins Eastman, the consulting firm hired by MPS to assist with facilities planning, presented data showing that 1 in 4 MPS schools are undercrowded and another 1 in 4 are overcrowded.
Over the next decade, the district is considering changes that would better distribute students and academic programs across its 144 schools — which initial plans likely will mean closing and consolidating some schools while modernizing others.
But there are no details yet on what will happen to each school.
In a question-and-answer session Thursday, many from the MPS community pressed for details on next steps. They wanted to know, among other things, how MPS plans to decide which schools can close, what will happen to closed buildings, when more details will be available and whether closures are necessary at all.
“I have two little ones, a second grader and a fifth grader. How can we sit down and say we’re going to keep our kids here in high school, in MPS?” said another parent, a father of five children. “These are dramatic changes.”
More: The future of MPS could include school closures and enhanced programming under a long-term facilities plan
Who decides which schools close, and why?
One important factor that could determine a school’s future is its “utilization rate,” or the percentage of the building in use, according to information presented by Perkins Eastman.
Schools with occupancy rates below 50% are more likely to be flagged for possible closure. Of Milwaukee’s 144 schools, a quarter (36) are half empty.
That is one of many factors that are taken into account. Perkins Eastman uses a preliminary tool to categorize schools called a “sorting tree.”
The first question in the sorting process is whether a school has an occupancy rate of 50% or more. If the answer is no, the next question is whether the school has seen enrollment growth over the past five years. If the answer is again no, the final question is whether that school is within a mile of another understaffed school.
If the answer is yes, the school may be marked for closure or merger. D
Depending on their situation, schools may be flagged for new academic programs or building upgrades, among other things.
“I want to be very clear that 50% is not a defining number,” says Patrick Davis, director of the consultancy. “That 50% only gets you so far. It brings you to a candidate group where we have to evaluate much more.”
Teachers are concerned about the consequences of school closures
During Thursday’s question-and-answer session, an MPS teacher told the crowd she worries that closing schools in parts of Milwaukee where needs are high will leave students stranded.
“You’re ripping the rug out from some of our underserved, very trauma-informed students,” the teacher said. “Where are those kids going to go when their only source of stability is gone? How is that really going to help them?”
Another teacher, who said it is her second year at MPS, said she wants the district to invest in schools before they close.
“At the school I’m at now, we don’t really offer extracurricular activities,” the teacher said. “The number of visitors here is also very low, and I think that’s a viable reason.”
For nearly an hour, Davis answered questions from teachers, parents and other community members.
He emphasized that school capacity, enrollment trends over the past five years and location in Milwaukee are only preliminary factors used to determine whether a school will close. The intention is not to “leave communities empty without schools,” Davis said.
Davis said it’s true that investing in a school’s programs, such as extracurricular activities, can help reverse declining enrollment. But he also said this is not financially possible for all MPS schools.
“The reality is that public school funding — not just MPS, any district — has limitations around the availability of funding,” Davis said.
Addressing long-term enrollment declines
Over time, MPS has lost students. One analysis charted a 33% decline in enrollment between 2006 and 2024, a loss of about 30,000 students. At the same time, enrollment in publicly funded charters and private schools has increased, data from the Wisconsin Policy Forum shows.
Some speakers wanted answers Thursday about how the facilities plan will take this major trend into account.
“Where are the children?” said a speaker who described himself as a 1998 graduate of North Division High School. “You have a 10-year plan on how you’re going to close the schools, but no plan on how you’re going to get kids back into MPS.”
Another challenge facing MPS, according to Perkins Eastman’s analysis, is how to evenly distribute students across Milwaukee. While dozens of schools are underpopulated, just as many schools are overcrowded. According to the presentation, some schools have been forced to pack 40 students into a classroom, or convert art and music rooms into regular classrooms to make space.
According to the presentation, academic programs are also not evenly distributed among Milwaukee schools. Special arts and bilingual education programs, or Advanced Placement, and college-level classes are more likely to be available at schools in the south of the city than in the north, the company’s data shows.
“Basically, many students don’t go to the school closest to them,” said Gavin D’Souza, another Perkins Eastman representative. “What we also see is that many students are moving from the north to the south of the city. And this creates differences in terms of experiences.”
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What are the next steps?
The consulting firm plans to present the Milwaukee Board of School Directors with a progress report and next steps by the end of October. The ultimate goal is to create a ten-year facilities plan, which will also require school board approval.
But MPS is still gathering public input on its plans, for example through an ongoing online survey.
The district also plans to hold two virtual town hall meetings via Zoom on Oct. 7. The first is from 12:00 to 1:00 PM and the second from 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM. To register for one of the virtual town halls, visit mpsmke.com/mpsspsc.
For more information about the facilities plan, visit www.mpsfacilitiesplan.com/home.
Cleo Krejci covers education and workforce development as a member of the Report For America staff at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact her at CKrejci@gannett.com or follow her on Twitter @_CleoKrejci. For more information about Report for America, visit jsonline.com/rfa.
This article originally appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Future school closures draw questions from MPS teachers and parents
