Seeds of Health Will Shutter High School, Expand Another
Move means MPS is losing another partner school.
2745 S. 13th St. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.
Charter school network Seeds of Health continues to reshape its roster of schools.
The nonprofit announced Thursday that it will close Grandview High School at the end of the 2026-27 school year and replace it with a second campus for its Veritas High School.
Grandview, an alternative high school, operates under a partnership agreement with Milwaukee Public Schools. The school, located at 2745 S. 13th St., was established in 1987 and was the first school operated by Seeds of Health.
The new school, Veritas East, is expected to open for the 2027-28 school year. The existing Veritas High School, 3025 W. Oklahoma Ave., will be renamed Veritas West.
Seeds of Health said the expansion is being driven by community demand for Veritas, a small high school focused on college readiness. The organization received an $800,000 grant through the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Charter Schools Program to plan and establish the new campus.
The federal funding, awarded through the U.S. Department of Education, supports the expansion of high-performing charter schools.
The school enrolled 256 students during the 2024-25 school year, according to its most recent DPI report card. About 91.8% of students identified as Hispanic or Latino, 75% were considered economically disadvantaged and 40.6% were English learners. Students with disabilities accounted for 5.9% of enrollment. Veritas earned a 74.9 overall score and an “exceeds expectations” rating from DPI.
Seeds of Health said all students who remain at Veritas through their senior year graduate on time and leave the school with a postsecondary plan.
Veritas East is expected to gradually grow to an enrollment of 275 students by the 2030-31 school year. It will occupy Grandview’s current building near S. 13th Street and W. Cleveland Avenue.
Seeds of Health leases the 30,520-square-foot Grandview building, according to city assessment records. The building was constructed in 1969.
In contrast, Seeds of Health has owned the existing Veritas campus on Oklahoma Avenue since 1992.
Seeds of Health CEO Jodi Weber said Grandview is being closed because Milwaukee students now have more alternative options for completing high school.
“During this next chapter, we honor the legacy of Grandview High School as the foundation of our agency’s educational mission,” Weber said in a statement. “By sunsetting the Grandview High School program and expanding Veritas, we are building on Seeds of Health’s long history of innovating and evolving to meet the needs of Milwaukee students and families.”
Grandview enrolled 219 students during the 2024-25 school year, according to its DPI report card. About 72.6% of students identified as Hispanic or Latino, 9.6% as Black, 5.5% as Asian and 6.8% as white.
The school served a student population with greater reported needs than Veritas. Approximately 85.8% of Grandview students were economically disadvantaged, 32.9% were English learners and 13.2% were students with disabilities.
Grandview received a 57.4 overall score and a “meets few expectations” rating. But the report card also showed that only 57% of its students participated in the testing used to establish the score, limiting how broadly the results can be interpreted.
Grandview operates under the state’s Children-at-Risk law through its agreement with MPS. The district’s website lists five other partnership schools, including two that specifically serve at-risk students.
Unlike Grandview, Veritas is a charter school authorized by UW-Milwaukee and operates independently of MPS.
The change will end Seeds of Health’s partnership-school relationship with MPS while expanding its portfolio of schools authorized by UW-Milwaukee.
Seeds of Health has made other changes to its school lineup in recent years.
The nonprofit previously operated MC2 High School at 131-141 S. 1st St. The school was later merged into Tenor High School and relocated to the Sentinel Building, 918 N. Vel R. Phillips Ave., where it now operates as Tenor’s Journal Square campus.
Seeds of Health also operates a second Tenor campus at 840 N. Jackson St., as well as Seeds of Health Elementary School, 1445 S. 32nd St.
The organization’s schools enroll more than 1,500 students annually.
Seeds of Health was founded in 1983 as a Women, Infants and Children clinic and continues to operate the nutrition program alongside its schools. The organization describes itself as Wisconsin’s first agency to operate a kindergarten-through-12th-grade charter school network.
The closure of Grandview comes as the relationship between MPS and independently operated schools continues to change.
In November 2025, the MPS board voted to end its relationship with Carmen Schools of Science and Technology against the recommendation of Superintendent Brenda Cassellius. Carmen is finishing a new building on W. Oklahoma Avenue and is relocating its Northwest campus to N. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. Carmen South’s former space within Casimir Pulaski High School will be, at least temporarily, filled by the students and staff of Lincoln Avenue Elementary School, which was recently destroyed in a fire.
Several MPS board members have publicly opposed non-instrumentality charter schools, whose employees and governing boards operate independently of the district. Grandview is not a non-instrumentality charter school, but its closure will further reduce the number of independently operated schools working under formal agreements with MPS.
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