MPS OKs April plan to reopen
Most high schoolers will keep learning remotely
Most Milwaukee Public Schools students will have the choice to return to school buildings by the end of April, the school board decided early Wednesday morning. This includes students from kindergarten through eighth grade and high school seniors, as well as other high school students failing at least one class.
Other high school students, and anyone who does not wish to return, will continue remote learning for the remainder of the school year.
Students who choose to return will be in classrooms every day except Wednesdays when students will learn remotely while schools are cleaned. Students can return on the following dates:
■ April 14: Kindergarten through third grade
■ April 19: Grades 4-8
■ April 26: High school students failing at least one class, and all high school seniors
“We are ready to open schools safely for our students,” Superintendent Keith Posley said.
Nearly 100 students, parents and teachers made conflicting emotional pleas over Zoom, while over 2,500 people watched the seven-hour virtual meeting on YouTube. Some supported the proposal. Students said they desperately wanted to see their friends and teachers again after an isolating and tumultuous year.
“Seeing them in person is much more comforting and fulfilling than communicating through a screen,” MPS eighth grader Maeve Harrison said. “Without that daily in-person experience, I feel much lonelier and more isolated.”
Others said they’re more fearful of catching COVID or spreading it to unvaccinated loved ones. People who are vaccinated can still carry and transmit the virus. MPS teacher Alice Lanphier
said she worries about her husband who has stage 4 cancer.
“I want every single day my husband has left,” Lanphier said. “When I am fully immunized on April 8th, I will still be able to infect and possibly kill my husband. To have managed to avoid COVID for the past year because of teaching virtually, and following safety guidelines, will all be for nothing if I am forced to teach in person before it is safe.”
Some families said they’ve been frustrated to see neighboring districts reopen school buildings while Milwaukee students stayed home. Others said this wouldn’t feel as safe in MPS, with the district’s large class sizes, old ventilation systems and high population of families of color who have been hardest hit by the virus.
“Of course, seeing my friends in other school districts living lives closer to normal makes me jealous,” said Lydia Zajichek, a senior at Reagan High School. “But we aren’t the suburbs. We do not have the same resources the suburbs do.”
Health officials have encouraged school boards to make reopening decisions based on local conditions and community COVID rates. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends full reopening when communities have fewer than 50 new cases per 100,000 people per week and when less than 8% of people tested for COVID test positive.
In the city of Milwaukee, while test positivity rates have been below 8% since mid-January, case numbers have not stayed below the 50 threshold. As of Tuesday, the case rate over the last seven days was 49 new cases per 100,000. A day earlier, the rate was 64.
The CDC recommends a hybrid model, with students learning virtually some days, when case numbers are between 50 and 100 and the percentage of positive tests is 8% to 10%. The MPS plan doesn’t note whether schools would revert to a hybrid or virtual model if COVID rates rise.
Voting in favor of the plan were board members Tony Báez, Marva Herndon, Megan O’Halloran, Bob Peterson and board President Larry Miller. Members Erika Siemsen and Sequanna Taylor voted against it.
Board member Paula Phillips, who had proposed delaying the vote until March 30, after families could be surveyed about their preferences, abstained from the final vote. Board member Annie Woodward, who was present for most of the meeting, was absent for the vote.
Plan includes smaller classes, other precautions
Class sizes will be capped at 15 to 18 students, depending on the size of the classroom, to allow 6 feet of distancing between students. Depending on how many students opt to return to school, this could mean some students will not be in the same classroom as their teacher but will watch their teacher on a screen with another MPS staff member supervising.
Miller said there are more than 100 teachers who work in MPS central administrative offices who can be deployed to assist in classrooms, along with substitute teachers and paraprofessionals.
It’s unclear how many students will return. Families will be surveyed beginning March 26 about whether they want to send their students back to school inperson or continue virtual learning for the rest of the year.
It’s also unclear how many high school students will qualify for returning based on academic performance. Last semester, the failure rate for MPS high school students was 30%.
Students and staff who return will be required to wear masks, except when eating. Miller said MPS plans to provide up to three masks per day per student, as well as masks for teachers, including N95 masks for those in the highest-risk positions.
Ventilation is another key factor as COVID primarily spreads via droplets in the air. Masks stop some droplets from getting into the air, and distancing allows more of them to drop to the ground before reaching another person. But smaller drops can linger in the air for hours. In a poorly ventilated room, the concentration of those droplets can build and cause transmission between people at farther distances.
Administrators said local consulting company Rivion audited ventilation in MPS buildings and administrators have improved airflow, made sure windows can be opened and plan to have portable air filtration units in each classroom. MPS has not provided a copy of this report as requested by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
School board members called for monthly testing of air quality throughout the district.
Any students and staff returning to buildings will be required to participate in surveillance COVID testing, under the plan approved by the board. Posley said he is unsure whether that can legally be required. The plan calls for testing 10% of students and staff in each school every other week.
Administrators said they will use a pool-testing method, where samples from all students in a classroom are combined into one test. If it comes back positive, meaning at least one student’s sample was positive, then all students will move to remote learning for at least two weeks while they are tested individually. If there are three cases in a school, the entire school will return to virtual learning for two weeks.
Board members also discussed transportation plans. Administrators said buses will have assigned, distanced seating, but didn’t specify how many students would be allowed on each bus or what the distance requirement would be. Bus drivers qualified for vaccination at the same time as all MPS staff.
Teachers, parents concerned plan lacks input, detail
The new reopening plan was unveiled Thursday, less than a week before the meeting.
Previous proposals floated by administrators described a hybrid model with only half the student body in classrooms Monday and Tuesday and the other half in classrooms Thursday and Friday. Teachers said they had prepared for the hybrid model and were blindsided by the new plan.
Administrators said the plan was informed by work groups involving staff students and families.
But according to district records, the health and safety work group has only met once since October. And that meeting excluded members who had participated in the past meetings. Ben Ward, executive director of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association representing MPS staff, said the union was not invited to that meeting.
“This presentation was never discussed with MTEA in any venue before the day it was released to the public,” Ward said. “This summary presentation creates a list of questions longer than it is.”
Posley confirmed MTEA members and other stakeholders were not invited to the last two meetings of the committee “for some reason.” Arms said the meeting was for department heads.
Many teachers said they didn’t feel confident they could ensure safe conditions in their classrooms.
“We need specifics, assurances and protocols,” said early childhood teacher Gina D’Acquisto. “Where there are holes in the system, the virus gets through . ... At this moment, with this plan, I can’t say that I can keep your children safe.”
Board members also said they were concerned about the lack of input and many unanswered questions. They planned to submit questions to administrators this week and directed administrators to provide answers by March 30 and update the reopening plan.
Vaccination levels unclear
Staff are supposed to return to buildings April 12 to plan and prepare classrooms. Those who were first in line for their first doses March 1 should fully protected April 5, under CDC guidelines.
Staff members who have underlying health conditions, or have family members with health risks, can submit requests to continue working remotely.
About 5,000 MPS staff have been vaccinated at sites run by the city health department, Health Commissioner Kirsten Johnson said, while others may have been vaccinated at other sites and weren’t tracked.
There are about 7,000 full-time staff working for MPS, according to staff records, and thousands more when parttime staff are considered. Johnson said the department has another 1,000 doses of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine available for any staff who still need the vaccine.
Students will have longer to wait. Some students ages 16 and older are already eligible based on employment or underlying health conditions, while all students ages 16 and up will be eligible by May 1, health officials have said. Vaccines for younger children haven’t yet been authorized.