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Of the 13 schools that could be closed in Milwaukee Public Schools, six are in one ZIP code: 53206.
The remaining seven are just miles down the street in ZIP codes 53205, 53210 and 53212. They form a square in the northwest-central part of Milwaukee’s most segregated, primarily Black neighborhoods that have been subjected to poverty-driving inequities for decades.
Of the 13 schools that could expand, 10 are in the southern half of the city.
MPS’ consulting firm that made the recommendations, Perkins Eastman, has advised changes like those would give all Milwaukee kids a better education. In an interview, consultants also said they are well aware of Milwaukee’s past and present racial segregation.
“We understand that these are difficult conversations, and that we’re not dealing with just today. We’re dealing with histories of disinvestment in communities,” consultant Patrick Davis said in an Oct. 31 interview. “We need to be able to understand that.”
The firm argues that decades of change in Milwaukee’s population mean that today, many northwest-central schools have more space than needed to enroll every eligible child living nearby. That’s the case even as many families choose to bus their students to schools that are farther away in search of better academics, often filling seats in already-crowded southside schools.
Meanwhile, MPS is facing dire budget shortfalls and criticism of financial mismanagement. And its overall enrollment has fallen by 30,000 students in less than 20 years, dragging down per-student funding.
Those facts have been in front of the public for weeks.
In response, teachers, parents and others have demanded justification — or alternative options — to closing schools that act as community anchors and resource hubs for some of Milwaukee’s most underserved families.
“As you can see from that list, closures are overwhelmingly in Black communities,” said Ingrid Walker-Henry, president of the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association, in an interview on Oct. 29. “What we know is that these are communities that have seen historical disinvestment. And what the families, the students, the staff of Milwaukee Public Schools deserve is investment, and not abandonment.”
How did Perkins Eastman decide which schools to recommend for potential closure or upgrades?
The 13 schools that could close or merge are clustered in a roughly 3-mile square in northwest-central Milwaukee, including neighborhoods like Arlington Heights, Franklin Heights, North Division and Sherman Park.
Across those schools, 92% of students are Black, compared to 50% overall across MPS.
Those schools have all seen declining enrollment over the past five years, and as a result, Perkins Eastman data shows at least half of each building is unused. They are also each within 1 mile of another school that is at least half-empty.
It’s the opposite reality for the 13 schools that could get expansions, which are already at or above capacity and projected to stay that way. Of those, 10 are south of Interstate-94. Those schools’ more-than-6,000 students are more white and Latino than MPS overall.
But most of the district’s 144 schools won’t see closures or expansions at all. The majority are candidates for new academic programs and building renovations, or are still being evaluated.
The goal is to invest in schools broadly across the district, said consultant Nate Morris — especially in neighborhoods that could also see closures, to offset harms he acknowledged come with them.
“We don’t want any investments to be overwhelmingly in one part of the city,” Morris said.
Why not just invest in all schools?
MPS students in the northern part of the city have fewer academic programs to choose from, like those in bilingual education or college-level classes. That inequity is a factor in driving students to enroll in schools farther south, according to consultants.
Those enrollment patterns drive questions from the community: Why not just invest more in all schools?
In an interview, Davis said even if every potential student living in the northern part of the district attended school closest to home, MPS would still have far too much space.
“There’s just not enough student population to support all the schools,” he said.
Consultants cited not only the district’s long-term enrollment declines, but changes in Milwaukee’s population. Eight of 13 schools that could potentially close or merge were constructed around the year 1900, the oldest being Brown Street Academy in 1882.
“Based on the age of those buildings, it’s fairly safe to say there was a large number of residents who used to live in that central core, and the city sort of expanded out,” Davis said. “It’s a fairly typical pattern we see across cities.”
The MPS long-range facilities plan created by Perkins Eastman is intended to roll out over several years. If investment helps revitalize schools’ enrollment, the district could change plans for closures, consultants said.
Are closures the only way to solve the district’s problems?
At an Oct. 29 school board meeting, MPS board member Megan O’Halloran described why her own child does not attend the school closest to home: That would have meant sending her to a middle school with 43 kids to a single classroom.
“I drive her to a different school that is further away,” O’Halloran said at the meeting.
O’Halloran asked whether MPS could address the district’s uneven enrollment with policy changes — like requiring students attend the school closest to home or a citywide school option. Perkins Eastman has already suggested similar options.
“I think whatever decisions come out of this will be very unpopular,” O’Halloran said. “But, if we have exhausted all of our analyses, and had public input around which is the least unpopular, I think that would be more fair.”
Schools are ‘good eligible candidates’ for closure or upgrades, but need more sorting
Perkins Eastman consultants said it’s easy for the public to see the recently released list of potential school closures and assume decisions have been made. But they said that list was just intended to signal which schools are “good eligible candidates” for closure, expansion or otherwise.
MPS and its consultant say they will get more community feedback before any decisions are made. That might include forming “steering committees” comprising parents, teachers and students.
“We just want people to show up. If they’re upset, or if they have questions they don’t feel like we’ve answered, that just means we have more work to do,” Morris said. “What is disappointing is when we can’t get the people there.”
Still, many affected by district-level decisions have been clear about their distrust about the process.
Walker-Henry, of the teachers union, said she’s skeptical about relying too much on building “utilization rates” used by the consulting firm, or the number of students enrolled in a school versus its capacity. Teachers need space to do their job, she said — and schools are community centers, not just classrooms.
She knows first-hand, having worked at Auer Avenue Elementary, one of the schools that could close in ZIP code 53206.
She remembers meeting a worried mother who had just gotten evicted, who came to her kids’ school and relied on its social worker for help. Connecting families to critical resources like those, she said, is much easier when school is right down the road.
“It’s not just school that happens in school,” she said.
Which specific schools could close, expand or see other changes?
The schools that are marked for potential closure or merger are: Brown Street Academy (elementary), Clarke Street Elementary, Siefert Elementary, Starms Discovery Learning Center (K-8), Auer Avenue Elementary, Hopkins Lloyd Community School (elementary), Jackson Elementary School, Dr. George Washington Carver Academy (K-8), Oliver Wendell Holmes School (elementary), Andrew S. Douglas Middle School, Keefe Avenue School (elementary) Robert M. LaFollette School (elementary) and William T. Sherman School (elementary).
The schools that could get capacity expansions are: Academy of Accelerated Learning (elementary), Alexander Mitchell Integrated Arts School (K-8), Eighty-First Street School (elementary), Escuela Vieau (K-8), Greenfield Bilingual School (K-8), Honey Creek Elementary School, Humboldt Park School (K-8), James Fenimore Cooper School (K-8), Jeremiah Curtin Leadership Academy (K-8), Mary McLeod Bethune Academy (K-8) Morgandale School (K-8), Ninety-Fifth Street Elementary and Whittier Elementary.
The full list of schools is available at: tinyurl.com/munc8mwu.
Cleo Krejci covers education and workforce development as a Report For America corps member based 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.
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