MPS Now Has a Certified Teacher in Every Classroom

Riverwest Elementary School, 2765 N. Fratney St. File photo by Dave Reid.

Milwaukee Public Schools has made history of a sort, but not without complaints.

“About 55 teachers are being moved from lower enrollment schools and classrooms. After these changes, we expect to have zero current classroom teacher vacancies,” Kevin O’Connor, MPS media relations manager, told Urban Milwaukee on Tuesday. That announcement was confirmed by the school administration when the school board’s Committee on Finance and Operations met that evening, although they increased that to 56 teachers being reassigned.

For several years, Milwaukee Public Schools has been operating with approximately 100 teacher vacancies. That meant many classrooms were staffed with teachers with emergency licenses or a string of substitute teachers. Milwaukee Superintendent Brenda Cassellius vowed to end this, promising every classroom this year would have a certified teacher. With this in mind, the district announced it was hiring more teachers. Meanwhile the district has also consolidated operations, meaning schools that did not meet their projected enrollment would face teacher cuts and reshuffling of students into other classrooms.

But some of the cuts or consolidations came to highly prized specialty schools such as Ronald Reagan, which is listed as losing a teacher because “Adjustment made due to overstaffing.”

Most controversial was the cut to French Immersion School, with the cut to popular teacher Alexandre Sablonniere. Several media outlets stated that these teachers “could lose their jobs.” But there would be no job loss; Sablonniere and all other teachers were being reassigned to other positions, including classrooms that last year lacked an assigned full-time teacher. Teachers would be redistributed to schools where the administration felt there was the greatest need, although the administration never stated at the committee what exact metric would be used to determine those needs.

French Immersion parents, students, and teachers rallied and went to the board committee meeting on Tuesday to give their support to the teacher being cut from their school.

But this issue was not on the agenda for the meeting, and legally the finance committee could only take up items listed for that meeting. Committee chair Darryl Jackson made the following statement: “We understand that a number of people want to speak on the excessing of an individual teacher. That topic has not been noticed for discussion on tonight’s agenda. You can still send those messages to the board. “

But the French Immersion representatives had figured out they could speak to the general idea of reducing staff if they tied it to item 2 on the agenda which included reassignments. A half-dozen adults and a few children from the school spoke about the impact on the education of children in general but always referenced their school.

Most used the word “stability” as being a factor in good education and how reshuffling of students to other classrooms impacts that stability. No speaker directly made reference to the 100 classrooms in MPS that have gone year after year with a string of reshuffled substitute teachers, never giving those classrooms any stability. French Immersion has never faced that kind of instability.

The first speaker was Rev. Melesa McEwan Skoglund who has a child at the school and acknowledged their school’s position. “We know that we come from a privileged place, and we want to advocate for the other schools as well.”

Another speaker from the school followed the same theme. “I do acknowledge that we do not reflect the average MPS families in race or economic standing, but I do find it is important to my vast privilege to speak up on these topics and to be here today to remind you all that we are not your adversary ; we are your partners.”

Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association president Ingrid Walker-Henry questioned the process of how the school administration was dealing with the people. “They’re here to protect their school. Something every student and family have a right to do. They attempted to get a meeting and were denied… They have a right to speak.”

One community member blamed the process of centralizing the budget and staffing instead of allowing each school community to decide their needs based upon money budgeted for their school. That accounted for much of this uprooting of teachers, he stated.

But Chief Human Resource Officer Dominick Maniscalco said, “This year is the least amount of staff we have excessed historically.”

Cassellius countered that she wants a baseline standard of care where every school was assured to have its basic needs met, including art, music, Phy Ed, and other support services. Giving each the same amount of money per student doesn’t take into account each school’s needs, such as the percentage of low income and special education students.

Cassellius has identified 19 schools she is targeting with the greatest need. “We will be able to deploy teachers to our high-need schools,” said Maniscalco.

But he raised one unmet need. The district is still looking for some 200 individuals to fill paraprofessional positions. So while the district has a qualified teacher in every classroom, many of the classes lack the support a paraprofessional can provide.

Positions Being Excessed