MPS Must Close Schools — But Not Without These Conversations

Milwaukee Public Schools needs to close multiple school buildings. I say this plainly, as someone who has sat through the district's Great Schools Committee meetings and heard the anger, grief, and suspicion in those rooms. But closing buildings is the easy part to say out loud. If MPS does it without a handful of other conversations and work happening at the same time, the result will be disastrous for families and fiscally damaging for the entire city.

The numbers are no longer in dispute. By the district's own reporting to the Legislature, thirty-six MPS campuses are less than half full, and roughly 30% of district building capacity sits unused. Meanwhile, the district faces a projected $420 million five-year operating deficit and more than $430 million in critical deferred maintenance, as City Forward Collective's Colleston Morgan laid out in his recent Neighborhood News opinion piece. Superintendent Brenda Cassellius now says the district cannot reach other solutions without closing schools.

The Great Schools Committee, the advisory group charged with setting closure criteria, has not finalized those criteria, and its last scheduled meeting is Oct. 26. The district's sorting tool has flagged 26 schools for possible closure or merger, but the tool itself is still not public. Parents who showed up at recent meetings, including those quoted by the Journal Sentinel, are pushing back hard. They deserve more than a list of buildings. They deserve a plan, and a plan has several moving parts. Those moving parts include the following:

1. Be honest about the surplus property law

The first conversation the superintendent and the school board owe residents is about state law. Under Wis. Stat. 119.61, the surplus property law added to the 2015 state budget, a building MPS designates as surplus, underutilized, or vacant stays on the eligible list for up to five years. For the first 24 months, the City of Milwaukee may sell it only to qualifying "education operators," meaning charter and private schools. In practice, this means a closed school can sit for two to five years before the district and the city have full control over what happens to it.

That matters enormously. Every year a shuttered building sits empty, someone still pays to secure it, insure it, and keep the pipes from bursting. Neighbors watch it decay. Closing a school to save money, then carrying an empty building for years, undercuts the whole financial case for closures.

So, residents deserve straight answers. Is the district lobbying to repeal or amend this law? Who is carrying that effort in Madison? Is there bipartisan support on the Joint Finance Committee, or is this a nonstarter? And if MPS wants the law changed, is there a plan to mobilize parents, neighbors, and community groups to advocate alongside the district? Quiet lobbying with no public strategy will not move a Legislature that wrote this law precisely because it did not trust MPS with its buildings.

2. Why District 4 feels singled out, and why it keeps coming up

I understand why North Side residents feel targeted. All five schools the planning firm Perkins Eastman originally recommended for closure are on the North Side: Auer Avenue, Clarke Street, Hopkins Lloyd, Keefe Avenue, and Siefert. At the Oct. 12 committee meeting, one speaker said closing schools in District 4 would do nothing to fix disinvestment there. Having taught in District 4, I can attest to its schools being treated as an afterthought, and that skepticism is earned.

But the public also needs to understand the history behind the map. School Board Districts 4 and 6 cover the oldest parts of the City of Milwaukee. These neighborhoods were built when families were larger, housing was denser, and children walked to the school down the block. That is why these districts have more schools packed closer together, and why many of those buildings are among the oldest the district owns.

When enrollment falls citywide, the places with the most buildings, the oldest buildings, and the most buildings within a mile of each other will show up first on any utilization list. That is not an excuse for a careless process. It is a reason to explain the history openly, so families can see the logic instead of assuming the worst.

3. Shrink the footprint, grow what works

We must admit that MPS must reduce its facilities footprint. The district cannot keep pouring money into crumbling infrastructure while classrooms go without. An under-enrolled building still needs heat, a roof, a principal, and office staff, whether 200 children are inside or 600.

But closures alone are not a strategy. The district also needs to think critically about where it builds new schools, and which programs are ready to be expanded or replicated. Some thriving programs are boxed into small, aging buildings with waiting lists. Those programs need to relocate to larger North Side sites that have the space to grow. This, of course will be unpopular because of Milwaukee’s sordid history of racial and class divides, but it is not unfathomable. Successful north side programs like those at Milwaukee French Immersion School, Golda Meir, and Rufus King High Schools are examples. That is how closures become something more than loss. If District 4 is asked to absorb the pain of consolidation, District 4 families should be first in line for the stronger programs and better buildings that come out the other side.

4. Put teachers where the need is greatest

Buildings are only half of the equation. The Milwaukee Board of School Directors also needs to reevaluate its policy that allows teachers to choose where they teach, rather than placing them where the greatest needs exist. Consolidating schools without changing how staff are assigned risks recreating the same gaps in new buildings. The schools serving our highest-need students too often struggle to attract and keep experienced educators. If the receiving schools in a consolidation cannot count on stable, skilled staffing, families will have every reason to leave MPS altogether. On this issue, the words of Morgan Freeman in the movie Lean on Me, are apropos, “this is not a damned democracy, we are in a state of emergency and my word is law!”—in this case, the school board needs to exercise some authority and do what is in the best interest of the district. Put employees where they are needed most, not where they desire to go. This is a hard conversation with real implications for teachers, and it should be had respectfully and with educators at the table. But it must be had. A smaller footprint only pays off if the people inside those buildings are deployed where students need them most.

5. These conversations must happen together

Internal policy changes, board transparency, bipartisan legislative support, and community advocacy cannot happen one at a time. If the district closes buildings without a path to repurpose or sell them, it will carry empty, decaying properties for years. If it changes the law without explaining its plan, residents will see a land grab. If it consolidates schools without rethinking staffing and program placement, families will walk. Any one of these failures would be fiscally damaging to MPS and to the City of Milwaukee.

Superintendent Cassellius has said she would rather add meetings than rush a decision, even with board action needed by December to close schools at the end of this year. That patience is welcome. But the clock is also running in Madison, where the next state budget is taking shape now. Now is the time for these conversations to happen openly and often, with members of the Joint Finance Committee, the Common Council, the MPS Board of School Directors, and the residents of Milwaukee. Closing schools is necessary. Closing them without a plan would be a mistake this city cannot afford.