Speaking Out Works

Before I say anything else regarding the past week's events of the Milwaukee School Board I would like to congratulate and thank all the hardworking teachers of MPS that came out to the meetings both Tuesday and Thursday to give passionate and moving testimony on why our schools cannot suffer from any further cuts. I found this especially meaningful upon reflection of last fall when I was on my way to one of my first board meetings, listening to the broadcast and hearing testimony highly critical of Milwaukee Public Schools in every regard. But this year my colleagues made me proud and captivated the tone of the discourse by keeping in the forefront our purpose--working to provide our children of Milwaukee with a quality education.
More specifically, I'd like to give big ups to early childhood teachers and members of the MTEA Early Childhood Committee who were able to fight for and win the passing of a budget amendment to increase the number of educational assistants in K4, K5 classrooms.
Besides the tax levy, the other dominant theme of the week was the closing of buildings, the selling of buildings and the opening of formerly closed buildings--all in efforts it seemed to streamline operations but I found a few reasons for concern. First of all, I think about these 'mothballed' schools. I think how school buildings are generally large structures--what effect does that have on the surrounding community when it has to contend with the physicality of a large vacant building? While I understand the financial difficulty for buildings that prove more expensive to operate than necessary I worry about the lack of input from the school communities affected by these decisions and frustrated when it seems their voices are overlooked for some reason or another. The Board proved it can put children first in voting to raise the tax levy, in spite of it being an economically difficult time but putting children first needs to be done consistently. Our students deserve nothing less.