Milwaukee classrooms can’t reopen
Health Department enacts stricter guidelines
Milwaukee schools and universities that have been planning to offer faceto-face instruction this fall may need to shift gears after the city Health Department quietly enacted stricter guidelines for when in-person classes may resume.
While Milwaukee Public Schools has opted to start the school year online, Marquette University, MATC and many of the city’s private and independent charter schools had been working under the assumption they could reopen with precautions, based on the city’s Moving MKE Forward Safely plan posted on the health department’s website.
An earlier version of that plan showed that schools and universities could reopen during Phase 4. But that document appears to have been updated on June 25 — the day before the city moved into Phase 4, where it stands now.
The latest version bars all schools and universities from opening until the city enters Phase 5 — which won’t happen until the city meets several benchmarks, including seeing a downward trend in COVID-19’s spread. Milwaukee’s coronavirus cases — and the percentage of COVID-19 tests coming back positive — have been growing in recent weeks.
“Nobody saw this coming,” said Jim
Bender, president of School Choice Wisconsin. “Schools did not have any sort of consultative role in these changes. And they didn’t get any communication from the health department that the changes were being made.”
The Phase 4 order, which the health department issued June 26, clearly states that all schools and universities are closed for in-person instruction until further notice.
But neither the order nor the news release announcing it mentioned that the criteria for reopening schools had changed.
Health Department spokeswoman Shawn Benjamin did not answer Journal Sentinel questions about why the changes were made.
Members of the Higher Education Regional Alliance, which includes 18 southeastern Wisconsin universities and colleges, did appear to be aware prior to Friday that schools may not reopen under the status quo.
The group sent a letter to Mayor Tom Barrett on Tuesday asking the city to change the order and allow the colleges to reopen.
They suggested tweaking the order’s language to allow them to “determine policies and practices for safe operations,” provided they do not open dorms without strict policies and safety measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19, they maintain social distancing to the greatest extent possible, and require face masks with some exceptions determined by the colleges.
Meanwhile, the colleges are continuing to plan for an in-person fall, as students start to register for classes and pack their things, some for a crosscountry move.
Left in limbo are private and charter schools — and the parents who planned to begin sending their children there.
“Schools have been investing money in operating their buildings and (personal protective equipment). There’ve been transportation discussions. So, now, what do you do with that? Does it all go back to virtual?”
Jim Bender
president of School Choice Wisconsin
‘Now what do you do?’
Bender said the choice schools only discovered the change after MPS announced this week that it planned to start the school year online-only and ramp up to in-person instruction if and when the coronavirus threat subsided.
He questioned why the health department made the change and speculated that it was to ensure MPS did not lose students to competing charter and voucher schools if it did not fully reopen.
“It makes me think the model got changed for something other than health reason,” he said.
Benjamin said the criteria for moving from one phase to the next are “determined by level of risk using the latest research and feedback from public health professionals.”
Some MPS parents who testified at a school board meeting Thursday did say they might put their children in other schools if the district did not open classrooms at the start of the year.
After hours of public testimony — much from parents who supported the proposal — the board approved a $90 million plan to start the school year online and gradually return to the classroom once the threat of coronavirus has subsided.
The plan calls for students to return via virtual platforms on Aug. 17 or Sept. 1, depending on their school calendar. The online phase is projected to last 30 to 45 school days, after which students would go to a hybrid online/in-person model, and then fully return to classes once that is deemed safe.
Several were skeptical of MPS’ ability to provide quality instruction online, given its slow and inconsistent ramp-up of virtual learning when schools closed in spring.
And parents and board members alike voiced concerns about how the district will serve its most vulnerable students, including children with disabilities, refugees and other Englishlanguage learners, and children in extreme poverty.
MPS is the state’s largest district, serving about 75,000 children, most of them low-income children of color. About 30,000 Milwaukee students attend private voucher and independent charter schools.
Bender said most of the choice schools were planning to offer a hybrid model in which students would split their time between in-person and virtual instruction. But he said they may now have to rethink that, and that attorneys would be reviewing the issue over the weekend.
“Schools have been investing money in operating their buildings and (personal protective equipment). There’ve been transportation discussions. So, now, what do you do with that? Does it all go back to virtual?”
The Milwaukee order covers only schools in the city of Milwaukee. Some suburban schools already have announced that they will reopen for faceto-face instruction, raising concerns that that will exacerbate the already wide achievement and opportunity gaps that exist between Milwaukee students and their more affluent suburban peers.
Colleges fear catastrophic losses
Fourteen campus leaders — including the heads of the UW-Milwaukee, MATC, Milwaukee School of Engineering, Alverno College, Mount Mary University, Cardinal Stritch University and the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design — signed the letter to the city, saying a hybrid online and in-person format is safe and is what students want.
It’s also financially crucial, they said — both for the city’s economic recovery and for the colleges themselves.
“If we are unable to resume in-person instruction, the losses will be in the tens of millions,” the letter reads. “Without in-person instruction, the jobs that were part of furloughs when campuses abruptly shifted to remote learning may not resume.”
The chancellors and presidents asked the language to be effective Aug. 1, to give them time to implement and share the information with employees and students.
Lab classes at MATC started in early June with make-up lab courses, with a plan to have some in-person instruction next semester, including training for essential workers in fields such as police, fire, EMT, health care and manufacturing.
A college spokeswoman said MATC believes the current make-up classes are allowed to progress as “essential functions.”
“In addition, we do not consider our current classes to be traditional in-person pupil instruction,” spokeswoman Virginia Gnadt said. “We will consult with the Milwaukee Health Department to determine whether our interpretation is correct.”
Marquette officials say detailed fall planning is ongoing, despite a spike in COVID-19 cases in the neighborhood west of campus where many Marquette upperclassmen live off-campus.
Interviewed Tuesday about the school’s ongoing plans to reopen, Marquette officials said they were consulting closely with the city health department and their planning was in line with recommendations from the CDC, local officials and consulting health experts.
As discussions between the colleges and the city continue, Benjamin told the Journal Sentinel that the health department at this point supports the approach of starting fall classes virtually, as MPS has planned.
But leaders of some of Milwaukee’s smallest, tuition-dependent private schools say doing so could be disastrous.
“Well, obviously, it’s — it’s not good,” Mount Mary University President Christine Pharr said.
Pharr said there is extensive planning underway that would make Mount Mary — a campus where the largest classes have about 35 people — safer than even students’ homes, thanks to safety equipment and clear expectations.
The order is too one-size-fits-all, she said, and doesn’t consider schools of various sizes and locations. And with no such orders elsewhere in the state, the fear is Milwaukee colleges could lose students.
The college has put millions into preparing for the fall, she said, and is currently facing a 5% to 10% enrollment decline, if they can open.
If not, it would be a drop of 20% to 25%, as students have indicated they’d rather take a gap year than pay for online classes.