Crowd Opposes MPS Staff Cuts

Milwaukee Public Schools Administration Building. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Was Milwaukee Superintendent Brenda Cassellius channeling the Rolling Stones?

“You may not get everything that you want, but you will get what you need,” declared Cassellius, an almost word-for-word quote from a famous song by the British band. She told the crowd of teachers and administrators and parents at the district’s auditorium on Monday, March 9 that Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) had to make staff cuts to deal with a $46 million budget shortfall.

Cassellius said that classrooms would be protected. In fact, efforts would be made to decrease class sizes. Teacher-certified employees who were in nonteaching positions would be moving to many classrooms. In schools where there was no room for additional classrooms, incoming new students would be limited in number until class levels reached manageable sizes. No more classes of 40 students.

“Research shows we are overstaffed at central services and in-school administration,” said Cassellius.

She referenced an audit from the Council of Great City Schools showing that MPS has one administrator for every 138 students, compared to one to 166 in other large urban districts nationwide and one to 198 as the Wisconsin average. MPS has more assistant principals than most Wisconsin districts, which statewide is one to 500 students. “Even with the reductions,” she noted, MPS would have a higher ratio of assistant principals to students than the state average.

Cutting 263 central services and non-classroom positions, which included many assistant principals and support staff, would save $30 million, she explained. But most in the auditorium were opposed.

Stanley Sheldon, an educator at Morse Middle School, expressed the sentiment of most in the crowd. “They have a right to understand why we are here again, and again, and again. We have passed several referendums. As a taxpaying person, myself, where is the money truly going? Is it really going to the families, to the children, to the classroom? Is it really going to the hard-working people who are in this building, in this auditorium right now? The assistant principals, deans of students… those individuals who sacrifice not only their livelihoods, not only their families, not only to individuals they do not know, their safety at times… sacrifice for this Milwaukee community, and most of all, our children?… There is no you without us.”

Both the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association (MTEA), the union representing teachers and other workers, and the Administrators and Supervisors Council (ASC), representing the assistant principals and others who might lose their positions, spoke against the superintendent’s proposal.

Speaking for the MTEA were Amy Mizialko and Ingrid Walker-Henry, while Juan Baez spoke for the ASC. They made reference to a joint letter they sent the superintendent stating that no effort was made to “meet and confer” on the proposed cuts, nor was any detailed information given as to who or where those cuts would be made.

Cassellius countered that she was only asking that the board give her direction as to whether it would support the concept. The actual cuts and transfers would come later, after some retirements and resignations are made and volunteers agree to return to the classroom. She wanted to identify the process now so that employees who would be transferred back to the classroom could be part of the regular process to interview for classroom openings they might prefer.

One of the criticisms of last year’s cuts was that the cuts were made after the regular interview process was over, and those required to transfer back to the classrooms could not use that interview process.

In the end, no speaker from the auditorium nor board members offered any alternative to the staff cuts.

No one suggested that the administration hold off any building modifications in this budget cycle. Many modifications will be made in several central city schools that board members and the public said needed to be made.

No one suggested the district hold off including sixth grade students to many grade 5 schools, which will cost the district additional dollars.

Nor did anyone suggest the district close any schools for the coming year.

School closures rarely save much money in the short term. In fact, closing schools the first couple of years may actually cost a district more money. Building modifications often have to be made, equipment and materials moved, transportation costs must be considered. Even an empty building still has to be maintained; it can’t just sit empty, deteriorating, dragging property values down.

Sally Noamah of Northwestern University has written extensively on school closures and noted in a 2025 article for the National Education Policy Center, that “the majority of school district expenses are related to personnel, costs that are not necessarily addressed by closing a school building.”

Other authors have pointed to concepts such as multi-grade classrooms as used in Montessori programs, grade reconfiguration and dual-enrollment programs as potential ways to cut the number of teachers and thereby save money. But changes in instruction take time and training. School consolidation to cut the number of educators must be measured against the cost of closing a building.

What Cassellius thinks she is doing is what can be done in the short term to bridge the budget deficit with the least amount of harm to education – by cutting personnel who are not in classrooms. Whether she is doing it in the right way, only time will tell.

But seeing no other alternative a divided school board voted 5-2 to approve her plan.