It’s spring cleaning time at MPS.
Literally: The school district is deep cleaning four of its campuses after tests revealed elevated lead paint levels putting students at risk.
It’s also time for some spring reorganization. The district just inked a $320,000 contract for new Superintendent Brenda Cassellius, and almost half of the seats on the school board of directors will turn over after the April 1 election.
Four seats on the nine-member board will be on voters’ ballots, and only one incumbent is running for reelection. Two other districts have unopposed races, and voters in a fourth district will choose between Molly Kuether-Steele and Katherine Vannoy.
With all the fresh faces, it’s good to take a step back and remember what an MPS school board member can do. Here's what to know:
What do MPS school board members do?
The nine directors represent districts and the schools within them for four-year terms. It is meant to be a part-time commitment — board directors are paid around $20,000 per year.
Tina Owen-Moore works with the board every day as the head of board governance for MPS.
"Their primary function is to set the guiding vision and policy for the district. They hire and evaluate the superintendent of schools and myself in Milwaukee’s case. And they try to ensure that the best practices are in place to support the actions of the schools," she says.
But a school board director’s power has limits. They have to work together to get anything done.
"I think one of those limitations is that sometimes it can be hard, you can’t, as an individual, say, ‘Do this’ to the administration and they do it," Owen-Moore says. "It takes the action of a full board to give any direction to administration. There has to be a vote. There has to be some collective efficacy, some collective agreement, in order to make change.”
MPS school board has faced financial, superintendent woes
Getting to consensus has been tough in recent years. MPS board member Henry Leonard was elected in 2021 and he isn’t seeking reelection this year due to the time commitment associated with the job. Either Kuether-Steele or Vannoy will take his seat representing District 7, which covers the city’s far west and southwest sides.
Leonard says the board’s relationship with former Superintendent Keith Posley was fraught with miscommunication, and that board members didn’t always get all the information they needed to make informed decisions.
Posley stepped down last year after financial mismanagement in the district became public just months after voters approved a $252 million referendum for local schools. That frayed public trust in MPS as a whole, although Leonard says that parents didn’t give up.
“To the credit of the community, they started to scream and yell a lot. And it sort of helped people like myself say, ‘OK, well I’m going to step up to the plate," he says.
What issues go to MPS school board of directors?
Community frustration has often been directed toward MPS’s elected officials as parents demand better governance.
Owen-Moore says if a parent is seeing a pattern across schools, or something that creates the need for a policy change, that’s when to reach out to a board director.
If a board director can’t solve a problem, they’re tasked with knowing where to send concerns so they ultimately get addressed.
“It never hurts to reach out to the board member, they’re just often not the first person, or the person, that’s going to be able to solve school-based problems because that’s not their role," she says.
Student achievement must be the heart of MPS, outgoing board member says
At the heart of a school board director’s job is strengthening the next generation of graduates, Leonard says.
Recent national test scores have raised alarm bells that MPS’s isn’t doing enough to close achievement gaps between Black and white students.
The next board members have their work cut out for them.
“When you look at our graduation rates, our low reading and math proficiency levels, attendance, those are actually the bread and butter of the district. And we have to change that. They’re going to be forced to really do their homework on how that has to be done," he says.
Any school board director who wants the job also needs to feel a healthy bit of stress to get it right.
“I think that it’s important for board directors to feel the pressure of knowing that they have to actually produce results," Leonard says. "Being a board director is really about the students and parents of your community and the schools that you’re representing.”
Now, it’s voters’ turn to decide who will join the board. The election is April 1.
Katherine Kokal is the education reporter at WUWM 89.7 - Milwaukee's NPR. Have a question about schools or an education story idea? You can reach her at kokal@uwm.edu
