Parents and residents concerned by news of possible lead exposure in Milwaukee Public Schools buildings gather outside of North Division High School as a lead screening clinic is held inside in May 2025. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
A parents’ advocacy group is giving mixed reviews to the latest developments in addressing the ongoing issue of lead contamination in Milwaukee Public Schools.
On the plus side, Lead Safe Schools MKE supports a new lead testing initiative at MPS that officials announced this week.
“We applaud the efforts at testing children and increasing testing penetration,” Kristen Payne of Lead Safe Schools MKE told the Wisconsin Examiner in an email message. “This will help to ascertain the extent to which children in Milwaukee suffer from elevated blood lead levels.”
Payne said the organization wants to see testing and evaluation expanded from elementary schools to the rest of the school system.
Caroline Reinwald, the public information officer for the Milwaukee Health Department, said that the MPS work started with elementary schools because younger children are at higher risk for lead exposure, which can lead to developmental problems. MPS is planning to evaluate other schools, she said in an email message, with the health department overseeing and guiding the process.
AnMPS Lead Reports and Plan webpage outlines the district’s project for addressing potential lead exposure in the school system.
Payne said Lead Safe Schools MKE wants MPS to adopt a stronger standard for evaluating drinking water for the presence of lead than it currently uses — 15 parts per billion — noting that public health experts say that no level of lead in drinking water is safe for humans.
MPS media relations manager Stephen Davis said that the district tested drinking water from all fountains, faucets, dispensers and other fixtures in 2016, and that 94% of fountains “met EPA standards.” Fountains that did not were turned off and eventually replaced.
Davis said there are no lead service lines providing water to MPS school buildings. The district also has filtration systems on all water fountains.
Payne said that her group wants to see the district use a standard from the American Academy of Pediatrics of less than 1 ppb.
The organization also wants MPS to continue dust-wipe sampling in the buildings that the district has declared stabilized to ensure that they remain safe.
Reinwold said the health department “supports continued vigilance and will continue working with MPS to ensure stabilization work remains protective over time and that any new deterioration is addressed promptly.”
In addition, Lead Safe Schools MKE has sought more testing of soil on MPS school grounds, which Payne called “an overlooked pathway of potential exposure.”
Davis said the school district has evaluated areas where children may “come into contact with bare soil” including playgrounds, courtyards and unpaved outdoor spaces.
Payne said Lead Safe Schools MKE also has concerns about communication and transparency in the ongoing project to address lead exposure concerns in the school system.
“There are serious gaps in the data available to the public and no clear accountability processes in place to be sure information gets published,” she said.
North Division High School had always been a staple in Milwaukee’s Black community.
But a Jan. 19, 1976, order by federal Judge John Reynolds for Milwaukee Public Schools to desegregate almost changed that.
The ruling led MPS to propose changes three years later with the goal to integrate the 97% Black North Side high school.
The solution? Close North Division as the neighborhood knew it and reopen it as a citywide magnet school for medical and science technology. Magnet schools offer special instruction and programs that are typically not available elsewhere.
The district had utilized a similar strategy in the years prior to integrate Rufus King High School and Golda Meir School by changing them to magnet schools.
The proposal for North Division would integrate the school by drawing more white students from other parts of the city but would also limit enrollment options for students in the surrounding neighborhoods.
Residents quickly fought back, organizing the Coalition to Save North Division.
Howard Fuller, who led the coalition, remembers the community’s reaction when the plan was first announced.
“We ended up filling up the auditorium at the board meeting at Central Office,” said Fuller, who went on to become superintendent of MPS from 1991 to 1995. “That’s when I gave the speech and ended by saying ‘enough is enough.’ That then became the slogan for the Coalition to Save North.”
Fuller said the group organized marches and meetings, canvassed across the neighborhood and eventually took legal action and won.
Desegregation at MPS
Lawyer and politician Lloyd Barbee, among others, filed a lawsuit against the Milwaukee Public School Board of Directors in 1965 to desegregate MPS, Milwaukee historian and author James Nelsen said.
The suit alleged that the district’s policy of assigning students to their neighborhood school maintained school segregation because of the widespread residential segregation across the city.
The case ran until 1976, when Reynolds ruled that Milwaukee Public Schools needed to take action to desegregate the district.
Reynolds then established a monitoring board to enforce and oversee districtwide desegregation plans.
Nelsen said shortly before the ruling, the Board of Directors welcomed new Superintendent Lee McMurrin, who had implemented magnet schools in Toledo, Ohio.
Once he came to Milwaukee, McMurrin pushed to rebrand some neighborhood high schools as magnet schools, encouraging students from across the city to go to different schools.
When a new North Division building opened in 1978, the district tried attracting white students to the school but was unsuccessful.
This, in combination with low performing grades at the school, led McMurrin to target North Division to become the city’s newest magnet school. The school would open a medical and science technology program for high schoolers across the city.
“We’re not satisfied with the results at North Division,” McMurrin said in a 1979 Milwaukee Sentinel article. “We will not have a change about unless we make it a brand new school.”
Community pushes back
Fuller, students and the neighborhood had major concerns about the new plan.
“The thing that concerned me the most was that once they built the brand-new building, then the first thing they were going to do then was to put all of the neighborhood kids out,” Fuller said. “In part, it was also a pushback against the way that desegregation was being implemented in the city at that time.”
Howard Fuller speaks to a crowd of students and community members in protest of Milwaukee Public Schools’ plan to turn the predominantly Black neighborhood school into a magnet school. (Courtesy of Howard Fuller)
North Division’s student council organized a rally in which 400 students walked out of school and marched to the Central Office in protest, according to local news reports.
The plan would close enrollment to freshmen and sophomores. Willie Washington, then a North Division junior, spoke out against the plan during the protest.
“We feel that we should not be used as guinea pigs for integration,” Washington told the Milwaukee Journal.
Fuller said the coalition spent the summer going door to door in the neighborhood, held community meetings and built a parent group.
When the new school year started in September 1979, Fuller and over 200 students gathered for a mass meeting on North Division’s front lawn. Fuller told students to study hard and “demand that they be educated.”
After months of protesting, Fuller said, the coalition escalated to legal action through the monitoring board, established to observe desegregation efforts.
Success at a cost
Fuller said the Board of Directors eventually reached an out-of-court settlement and dropped the plan.
“It was the first battle where the board reversed its decision on closing a school in the Black community because all of the protests before had never gained any traction,” Fuller said.
The school would remain a neighborhood school but also offer a career specialty program, according to the settlement.
The agreement said the school should aim for about 2,000 students, 60% Black and 40% white. A set number of seats would be set aside for non-Black students, and Black students could not fill those spots.
As those changes were implemented, problems at North Division High School continued, Fuller said.
Fuller said nobody knew he would eventually become a superintendent of MPS. When he took on the role in 1991, he gained access to documents and information nobody thought he would see.
An assistant superintendent at the time told him that the board had taken actions to sabotage North Division after the coalition won.
“Some of the problems that exist at North today can be traced back to the conscious attempt to sabotage North once we won in court,” Fuller said. “There was such anger on the part of the administration that they had to do this.”
For example, Fuller said the coalition worked with North Division Principal Bob Jasna to set up a program and curriculum for the school, then replaced Jasna with a middle school principal who knew nothing about the work he and Fuller did.
“That sabotaged the entire effort that we had made,” Fuller said.
Today, North Division High School remains predominantly Black — 90.5%, according to the latest state report card. The school scored an overall 54.9 on the report card, meeting few expectations, according to the Wisconsin Department of Education.
“For me, this struggle around North Division has never ended,” Fuller said. “It’s been ongoing for 30, 40 years.”
Alex Klaus is the education solutions reporter for Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.
For over a decade, Milwaukee residents and civil rights figures protested racial segregation in Milwaukee Public Schools.
Students protested alongside local leaders including Alderwoman Vel Phillips and Father James Groppi.
Activists organized citywide school boycotts, with churches hosting ‘freedom schools’ to teach students amid the protests.
For years, families fought against intact busing, which maintained existing segregation in Milwaukee Public Schools.
First image: James Groppi Photographs, used with permission of the Wisconsin Historical Society and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries. Second image: James Groppi Photographs, used with permission of the Wisconsin Historical Society and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries. Third image: James Groppi Photographs, used with permission of the Wisconsin Historical Society and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries. Fourth image: Courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society, Lloyd A. Barbee papers, Image ID:4993
A year of protests against school segregation wasn’t enough to sway Milwaukee Public Schools to integrate. So in 1965, Milwaukee attorney and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) leader Lloyd Barbee filed a lawsuit against the district, arguing it intentionally took action to keep schools segregated.
Racially restrictive covenants and redlining already legally maintained neighborhood segregation in the city, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee urban studies professor Anne Bonds said.
“In a dynamic where you have a deeply segregated landscape and a housing landscape that’s been produced by design … the schools that children would attend in their racially segregated neighborhoods would reflect the patterns of racial segregation that exist,” Bonds said.
After 10 years of fighting, federal Judge John Reynolds ruled on Jan. 19, 1976, that Milwaukee Public Schools needed to take action to desegregate schools. But how did they get there?
1940s
1948
Federal ruling states racially restrictive covenants unenforceable
U.S. Supreme Court case Shelley v. Kraemer rules that racially restrictive covenants could no longer be enforced, but the practice continues in metropolitan Milwaukee into the 1960s. University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee professor Derek Handley says covenants were not ruled illegal until 1968 with the Fair Housing Act.
1960s
July 9, 1963
NAACP leader calls for end to de facto segregation
Lloyd Barbee, president of the Wisconsin chapter of the NAACP, makes an official call to the state superintendent and Milwaukee Public Schools to desegregate schools.
August 1963
MPS Board forms Special Committee on Equality of Educational Opportunity
MPS School Board President Lorraine M. Radtke establishes the committee “for the express purpose of providing a dispassionate and objective study for all the problems in this area,” she tells the Milwaukee Journal.
Headline about a desegregation protest in Milwaukee from Milwaukee Sentinel, Feb. 3, 1964
Feb. 3, 1964
Schools protest against intact busing
NAACP and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) stage protests at three schools: Twelfth Street School, 20th Street School and Sherman School. A CORE and NAACP leaflet said intact busing — the practice of busing entire classes of students and teachers from overcrowded or remodeled schools into other schools without integrating them into the general school population — was “blatantly discriminatory.”
March 1, 1964
Barbee forms Milwaukee United School Integration Committee (MUSIC)
Lloyd Barbee serves as chairman, accompanied by civil rights, labor, social, religious and political groups and leaders including Ald. Vel Phillips and Father James Groppi. MUSIC starts planning a school boycott.
Used with permission of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries
May 18, 1964
8,500 students attend Freedom Schools, boycott MPS
MUSIC organizes 32 freedom schools, where a mix of university professors, artists, musicians, professional teachers and individuals with professional training hold classes for a day.
June 18, 1965
Barbee files desegregation suit in federal court
Barbee files Amos et al. v. Board of School Directors of the city of Milwaukee on behalf of 41 Black and white students, arguing that MPS intentionally maintained segregation in schools. The district argues that, while its schools might be segregated, it was due to the segregated neighborhoods of Milwaukee and not from intentional action of the school board.
Video from University of Wisconsin Milwaukee MUSIC Records archives
Oct. 18 to Oct. 22, 1965
MUSIC begins second school boycott
For over three days, thousands of students boycott Milwaukee Public Schools and return to freedom schools organized around the city.
Video from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee MUSIC Records archives
Dec. 5 to Dec. 17, 1965
MUSIC begins daily demonstrations at MacDowell School construction site
MUSIC holds daily protests at the school out of concern that the school enrollment will be heavily Black students. Protesters chain themselves to construction equipment, hold all-night vigils and march from the school to the MPS Central Office.
Headline from Milwaukee Sentinel
March 28, 1966
Hundreds of students boycott North Division High School
MUSIC opens three different freedom schools for students in its third school boycott. “The selective boycott gives us a chance to do a quality job in real compensatory education,” Barbee said.
Headline from Milwaukee Journal
Sept. 16, 1967
Report on Milwaukee Public Schools recommends adopting policy to reduce racial isolation
The Academy for Educational Development studies Milwaukee Public Schools for a year. The report finds that the district should reduce racial isolation but also says neither integration nor special educational efforts alone will solve problems with poor education for Black students.
Headline from Milwaukee Journal
January-February 1968
White Hawley School parents protest busing children to MacDowell
Renovations at Hawley Road School (now Hawley Environmental School) are set to start in February. As a result, predominately white students will be bused to MacDowell School, which was 50% Black, under the district’s intact busing program. Nearly 100 angry parents attend an informational meeting about the changes. Some raise concerns about crime, while others believe the move is an attempt at racial integration. Nine parents are charged with violating state attendance laws by refusing to let their children be bused to MacDowell.
1970s
Headline from Milwaukee Journal
Aug. 3, 1971
After 17 years of intact busing, MPS school board votes to end practice
Though Black students are bused to white schools, races are still segregated in different classes. School board member Robert G. Wegmann visits Cass Street School and sees students segregated even in the cafeteria, with “a row of white, a row of Black,” he tells the Milwaukee Journal.
June 4, 1974
MPS Board limits transfers into Riverside High School to keep school integrated
White enrollment at Riverside High School drops from 70% in 1971 to 40% in 1974. Without the transfer policy, the Milwaukee Journal reports white enrollment will drop to 36% during the upcoming school year.
Feb. 17, 1975
MPS Board approves action to prevent eight additional schools from becoming all Black or Latino
In addition to Riverside, the plan targets Washington High School, Custer High School, Steuben Middle School, Edison Junior High School, Kosciuszko Middle School, Wright Junior High School, Muir Middle School and South Division High School. The plan would create school-community committees at all schools, including Riverside. The board anticipates regulating transfers of students from outside neighborhoods.
July 1, 1975
Lee McMurrin becomes MPS superintendent
Known for his work opening magnet schools and managing integration plans in Toledo, Ohio, McMurrin leads the district through the bulk of its integration plans in the late 1970s.
Headline from Milwaukee Journal
Jan. 19, 1976
Judge John Reynolds rules MPS must desegregate
After a lengthy legal battle, Reynolds says MPS must develop a plan to desegregate its schools. “I have concluded that segregation exists in the Milwaukee public schools and that this segregation was intentionally created and maintained by the defendants,” Reynolds says.
Screenshot of portion of settlement agreement between Coalition to Save North Division and Milwaukee Public School board. (Provided by Howard Fuller)
April 24, 1976
After extensive protests from the Coalition to Save North Division, the school board votes to abandon North Division magnet school plan
Milwaukee Public Schools decides to drop its plan to turn North Division High School into a magnet school after the Coalition to Save North Division takes legal action and reaches an out-of-court settlement.
September 1976
Golda Meir School (then Fourth Street School) re-opens as a specialty school for the gifted and talented
Fourth Street School, later renamed after former Prime Minister of Israel Golda Meir, was a predominately Black school until the district turns it into a magnet elementary school.
Students walk out of Parkman Junior High School (Courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society, Milwaukee Sentinel, Image ID:140420)
Oct. 1, 1977
Triple O and Blacks for Two Way Integration stage school walkout to protest district’s burden of desegregation on Black students
About 1,300 students stage a walkout at about 10 schools, sponsored by the Organization of Organizations (Triple O) and Blacks for Two Way Integration. The Milwaukee Public School Board asks its attorney to investigate whether the district can prosecute students for disruption and promoting truancy, and cuts off $70,000 in funding for the Social Development Commission (SDC), which funded Triple O.
Headline from Milwaukee Sentinel
September 1978
Rufus King reopens as a college preparatory school
The school, renamed Rufus King High School for the College Bound, is rebranded in an attempt to integrate the predominately Black school.
Picture provided by Howard Fuller
May 1, 1979
MPS Board announces plans to close North Division, reopen as a science and medical magnet school
Residents quickly begin protesting out of concern that district integration plans are unfairly placing the burden of segregation on Black students. Students, residents and civil rights organizers form the Coalition to Save North Division.
Source: Milwaukee Journal, Milwaukee Sentinel, and University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Barbee Papers Timeline by Alex Klaus / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / Report for America and Hongyu Liu / Wisconsin Watch
Last month marked the 50-year anniversary of Reynolds’ desegregation order.
Today, MPS still faces many of the challenges the order sought to address, including the achievement gap between Black and white students and ongoing segregation.
Since the start of her tenure, MPS Superintendent Brenda Casselius has said she plans to work with other sectors to address ongoing segregation and that bridging the achievement gap is one of her top priorities.
Three cases of measles has been confirmed in Wisconsin in recent weeks, the latest involving an out-of-state traveler who traveled through Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport to Walworth County on Jan. 29.
Milwaukee Health Commissioner Michael Totoraitis said during a news conference Tuesday that there were six individuals on the flight from the city of Milwaukee who may have been exposed as well as others.
“We have been in communication with those (six) individuals, and there’s also likely other contacts from the airplane that we do not have,” he said.
Measles is a serious disease that can cause high fevers and a spreading rash and lead to life-threatening complications such as pneumonia.
Lindsey Page, director of immunizations and communicable disease with the Milwaukee Health Department, said measles is highly contagious and the risk of it hitting the city is real.
Extremely contagious but can be prevented
According to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, measles can spread from person to person through the air from coughs or sneezes. The department states that measles is so contagious that 90% of unvaccinated people who are around someone who is infected may also be infected.
Page said the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine is highly effective at preventing the spread of measles. Still, vaccine rates in the city are below the recommended rate for herd immunity. Herd immunity for measles is reached when 95% of people in the community have the MMR vaccine.
“It certainly poses a threat, which is why we’re obviously emphasizing the vaccination, which is key in preventing disease from spreading before it starts,” Page said. “The measles vaccine is one of the most effective and well-studied vaccines ever used.”
Three-fourths of 6-year-olds in Milwaukee have received both recommended MMR doses, according to the Milwaukee Health Department. Among 18-year-olds in Milwaukee, that number increases to 88%.
The Milwaukee Health Department and Milwaukee Public Schools are working to get residents access to vaccinations to increase those rates and keep them safe.
According to the International Vaccine Access Center, childhood vaccination rates in the U.S. have declined, and only 10 states had MMR rates above 95% during the 2024-25 school year.
Vaccination rates low in many Milwaukee schools
Neeskara is one of several Milwaukee schools where less than half the students have received the MMR vaccine. (Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local)
Of the 152 Milwaukee public, private and charter schools with available vaccine data, only 11% have reached herd immunity levels of 95% for the MMR vaccine, according to data from the Washington Post.
Only two Milwaukee Public Schools for which data was available, Highland Community School and Cooper Elementary School, had an MMR vaccination rate of 95%.
Just 7% of Milwaukee schools have a 95% immunization rate for all required vaccinations.
Milwaukee Public Schools notifies families if immunization records are missing or incomplete, and students may be excluded from school if requirements are not met within a reasonable time, said Stephen Davis, MPS media relations manager.
Students are allowed to attend school while families work to get their required vaccinations or submit a valid exemption as allowed by state law, Davis said.
Page said the Milwaukee Health Department runs vaccine clinics inside select MPS schools at the beginning of the school year. Students take home vaccine consent forms for parents to sign so those students can get their required immunizations in school.
In the near future, the department will set up targeted clinics in schools with low MMR vaccination rates, Page said.
MPS prepares for potential measles cases
MPS is monitoring measles in the region and maintains regular communication with local and state public health partners, Davis said.
Davis said the district has an infectious disease response plan, which the district reviews periodically and updates as public health guidance changes. The district last reviewed the plan in 2025.
“While no increased risk has been identified within our schools at this time, we are remaining vigilant and prepared to respond if conditions change,” Davis said.
If a case of measles is identified in the city, Davis said MPS would implement its response plan, including coordinating with key staff and reinforcing illness reporting procedures.
“Schools would follow established exclusion, cleaning and notification procedures in accordance with public health guidance,” Davis said.
Where can I get vaccinations?
The Milwaukee Health Department and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services offer several resources to check your vaccination status and access free vaccinations.
Page said you can check your vaccination status with your pediatrician or doctor, look up your status on the Wisconsin Immunization Registry or contact the city Health Department at 414-286-6800.
Page said the Health Department offers free MMR vaccines to all residents at three immunization clinics regardless of age or insurance status.
These clinics also offer other vaccines, available for free for people without health insurance. Eligibility for certain vaccines depends on factors like age, and some vaccines are not always available.
Check vaccine availability by calling 414-286-8034.
Immunization clinic services in Milwaukee
Keenan Health Center, 3200 N. 36th St.
Open for vaccines on Thursdays from 1 to 4 p.m.
Northwest Health Center, 7630 W. Mill Road
Open for vaccines on Wednesdays from 3 to 6 p.m.
Southside Health Center, 1639 S. 23rd St.
Open for vaccines on Mondays from 3 to 6 p.m. and Tuesdays from 1 to 4 p.m.
Alex Klaus is the education solutions reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
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