MPS Superintendent Brenda Cassellius. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Hundreds of students in the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) have been tested for lead poisoning as the district continues navigating controversy after several school closures due to lead contamination. City officials said during a Thursday morning press conference that 249 students and their siblings have been tested since January. Three schools remain closed including Fernwood Montessori School, Starms Early Childhood Center, and LaFollete School, while four other schools which were previously closed have been re-opened. 

MPS also announced that its senior director of facilities director and management is leaving the district, effective immediately. The district is now looking for a new director to help address lead hazards in MPS schools. Sean Kane had been with MPS for 25 years. MPS Superintendent Brenda Cassellius thanked him for his service during the Thursday morning press conference at the MPS Administration Building. 

“I will immediately begin a search for a permanent replacement to lead the district,” said Cassellius, adding that Michael Mannan, the Milwaukee Health Department’s director of home environmental health, and Mike Turza, a retired MPS employee who was re-hired in March after nine years of retirement are assisting during the transition. Turza was brought onto Cassellius’ transition team to help with an operational audit requested by the governor’s office.

Kane has become a central figure in the MPS lead contamination controversy. While working as facilities director, Kane had failed to keep his architecture license current. In March, the state Department of Health Services issued a letter blasting lead remediation work done by MPS employees overnight at Fernwood Montessori. The letter said that 11 employees conducting the lead remediation may not have been trained to do so, and that students had been allowed back into classrooms which were still contaminated. 

“We must move forward with a plan that everyone has confidence in, that everyone trusts, and that puts the wellbeing of our students and staff at the forefront,” said Cassellius. Mayor Cavalier Johnson was also in attendance, and praised the collaborative efforts between MPS, the health department and the state government, as well as MPS leaders’ care and attention to families. “There’s nothing, absolutely nothing more important than the health and wellbeing of kids in Milwaukee,” said Johnson. “We recognize that there are issues, and we are actively working to address those issues with keeping the health and again, the wellbeing, of kids at the forefront.” 

This week, Kane was fined $1,319 by the state Department of Safety and Professional Services for violating state law, and misrepresenting himself as an architect since his license lapsed nearly five years ago. While his license was invalid, Kane was appointed facilities and management director in October 2021.

Cassellius wouldn’t comment on personnel matters involving Kane. During the Thursday press conference, however, Milwaukee Health Commissioner Dr. Mike Totoraitis said, “I never want to see anybody lose their job or their role, however I do think at this moment, it was warranted to help move us into this next step.”

Totoraitis also answered questions from media about emails showing that Kane did not allow health department staff into Golda Meir School to do a full lead risk assessment, and did not disclose that lead remediation work was ongoing after a student was found to have lead poisoning. “I was frustrated,” said Totoraitis. “Our team was also ready to send a staff of about eight individuals and lead risk assessors to go to the schools. We were ready to work that weekend.” 

The health commissioner said that 249 students and their siblings have been tested for lead poisoning. Others have received  routine screening at pediatric offices. Totoraitis also said “we have pivoted” from using dust swab samples inside buildings to using a checklist and visual inspection — which he said is outlined in state statute — “to ensure that we are quickly assessing the schools, as opposed to doing the dust wipe samples which usually take a week and a half to get processed.” In some cases, Totoraitis said that ceiling and floor tiling is being checked and sealed to prevent lead intruding into the schools. 

A plan to tackle the lead contamination has been drafted and officials said it will eventually be released to the public. Testing and screening of students will continue, “because that’s the best way for us to determine if children have been poisoned or not,” said Totoraitis. 

In late March, Totoraitits said that the city issued a formal request to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for additional assistance, and had received federal assistance in recent months. Mass layoffs in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and funding cuts by the Trump administration have put additional assistance in question. 

On Thursday, Gov. Tony Evers highlighted a plan to tackle lead contamination in his weekly radio address. The plan includes over $300 million to fund initiatives aimed at removing lead service lines contaminating drinking water and supporting lead renovation programs. Childhood lead contamination has been linked to cognitive disorders including degraded impulse control, learning disabilities, and violent behavior. About 85 MPS schools were built before 1970 and are therefore at high risks of lead contamination. 

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Rep. Brent Jacobson (R-Mosinee) said extended supervision, probation and parole are tools that give people a second chance with the expectation that they will not commit other crimes. Screenshot via WisEye.

The Wisconsin Assembly passed a slate of criminal justice related bills Thursday, including a requirement to revoke probation or parole for people charged with crimes and implementing financial penalties if Milwaukee Public Schools doesn’t return police officers to school buildings.  

Republican lawmakers said the bills were necessary to improve public safety in Wisconsin. 

“Wisconsinites in almost every part of our state have seen that there are areas of our state that have sincere and real concerns,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said during a press conference.

Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) said during floor debate that lawmakers should be crafting “smart” legislation to ensure people are safe across the state, but that the bills fall short of that goal. She said lawmakers should be focused on investing in safety.

“We can use evidence based, data driven practices to lower recidivism, to save taxpayer dollars and invest in rehabilitation and treatment to keep our communities safe,” Neubauer said. “Democrats are serious about safety, but the majority of bills in front of us today are not.”

Rep. Ryan Clancy said in a statement after the session that lawmakers spent the day on “considering badly written, badly conceived bills that will harm people and waste public resources” and said Republicans were refusing to acknowledge that mass incarceration and prison overcrowding are problems for the state. 

“It’s wildly irresponsible to even consider increasing penalties and interfering with the very few tools of leniency we have with a prison system holding 5,000 more people than intended,” Clancy said. “But here we are.”  

A couple of the bills would implement stricter requirements for dealing with criminal charges for people released from prison. 

AB 85 would require supervising corrections officials to recommend revoking extended supervision, parole or probation for formerly incarcerated people who are charged with a new crime after their release. It passed 53-43.

The Department of Corrections found in a fiscal estimate that the bill would result in approximately 6,280 additional revocation cases each year. It also found that there would be an increase in operations costs by $85 million in the first year of enactment and a permanent increased operations cost of about $245 million after the population is annualized in the second year.

Vos said that the bill should be simple. He said that people who are out on parole have been given the “privilege” of being released from prison. 

“Do you stand with the victim and the public or do you stand with the criminal who has reoffended and given up the privilege that he was briefly granted?” Vos rhetorically asked. “I think the price is worth it — $300 million to keep the people safe.” 

Jacobson said the bill is necessary to address the “revolving door” in the prison system and ensure criminals don’t have the opportunity to victimize people. He said that extended supervision, probation and parole are tools that give people a second chance with the expectation that they will not commit other crimes. 

“In far too many cases, a person released under state supervision continues the behavior that resulted in them going to prison in the first place,” Jacobson said. “It seems like common sense that someone who’s been convicted of a crime, is released under state supervision and returns to committing crimes, should have their release revoked. Far too often that is not the case.” 

Clancy said in his statement that Republicans were “openly misleading the public and their colleagues about the contents and impacts of those bills.” He noted that the bill would be “triggered when someone is merely charged with a crime” but not found guilty.

AB 66 would require prosecutors to get a court’s approval to dismiss certain criminal charges. It passed 53-44.

Rep. Alex Joers (D-Middleton) said the bill would “remove prosecutorial discretion” and impose limits on those trying to uphold the law. 

Jacobson, who authored the bill, argued it would support law enforcement and protect Wisconsinites from being victimized. He noted that Wisconsin law allows prosecutors to dismiss or amend charges or enter into deferred prosecution agreements. 

“In the Legislature, we can pass all the penalties we like. It won’t matter if the justice system won’t apply those penalties,” Jacobson said. The bill, he said, would add an additional layer of oversight and transparency by requiring prosecutors to get court approval to dismiss or amend charges in cases involving one of seven serious crimes. Those include sexual assault, crimes against a child, theft of an automobile, reckless driving resulting in great bodily harm and illegal possession of a firearm by a felon. 

“These crimes leave lasting impacts and it’s our job as officials to take these seriously,” Jacobson said. 

Lawmakers also passed a couple of bills that would increase penalties for certain crimes.

AB 61, which would increase penalties for injuring or killing an animal used by police or firefighters, passed in a voice vote. 

Specifically, the bill would increase injuring an animal to a Class H felony, which is punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 or imprisonment for up to six years. Killing an animal would be increased to a Class G felony, which is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 or imprisonment for up to 10 years.

AB 86 passed in a voice vote. The bill would increase the penalty for child sex trafficking if the crime involved at least three victims who were children at the time the crime was committed from a Class C felony to a Class A felony. As a Class A felony, the crime could be punished with life imprisonment.

AB 89 would allow multiple acts of theft or retail theft committed by the same person to be prosecuted as a single crime, and the value of the thefts to be combined in determining the penalty. It passed 71-26, with 18 Democrats joining Republicans in support. 

School resource officers in MPS 

Lawmakers also passed AB 91, which would implement financial penalties for Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) and the city of Milwaukee if either stop complying with a state law that requires police officers in schools.

Wisconsin Act 12, which passed in 2023, provided increased state funding for local governments and also implemented requirements that MPS place 25 officers in its schools by Jan. 1, 2024. The district was late to begin following the law, and a judge recently ordered the district and city to comply with the state law and instructed the district and the city to split the cost for the officers evenly. The Milwaukee Common Council and MPS Board both approved an agreement to make this happen earlier this month. 

The bill was introduced, its sponsors said, to ensure the district complies both now and in the future. 

An amendment to the bill changed the cost-sharing from 25% for the city of Milwaukee and 75% for the district to an even split between the two entities. 

If there is noncompliance, 10% of the city’s shared revenue payment will be withheld by the state and 25% of the school district’s state aid payments would be withheld. 

MPS has not had officers in schools since 2016, and the district ended its contract with the Milwaukee Police Department in 2020 in response to student and community opposition to the practice, a point that Rep. Darrin Madison (D-Milwaukee) pointed out during floor debate. 

Madison said that when he was a student at a school staffed with officers a friend of his had an encounter that left him in the hospital. 

“Two students were fighting. School safety officers came in and de-escalated the situation. As a friend of mine went to go check on his sister, who had been involved in the incident, I got to see school resource officers grab him, lift him in the air and body-slam him on the concrete of our lunchroom floor,” Madison said. “His shoulder was dislocated and his lip was busted, and he had to undergo surgery to navigate that situation. That wasn’t the only time that this happened in our school, where students were harmed by school resource officers.”

Madison said police officers in schools are a “failed approach.” 

“Thanks to Act 12, and thanks to this bill. We’ll continue to create harms for our students… Our schools shouldn’t look like prisons. They shouldn’t work like prisons, and we shouldn’t treat students like prisoners in a space of learning, creativity and exploration. This takes Milwaukee schools in a bad direction.”

Clancy pointed out that MPS is not the only school district without officers in schools. Some other districts are Madison Metropolitan School District, Sherwood, Nicolet, Glendale River Hills.

“This is an attack on Milwaukee, and this is an attack specifically on the Black, brown, and Indigenous young people,” Clancy said. 

Bill author Rep. Bob Donovan (R-Greenfield) said that the bill is needed because Milwaukee schools continue to call the police to deal with incidents. He cited a recent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report that found MPS averaged 3,700 police calls each year over 11 years. 

“If MPS doesn’t want cops in their schools, why do they keep calling them?” Donovan said. 

“Some say that this legislation or the penalties are not necessary. What is the alternative? The state just allow open defiance of state law? It took an MPS parent to sue the district before any movement was made,” Donovan said. “This legislation ensures this never happens again… There must be consequences for breaking the law, and how can we expect MPS to teach our children respect for authority and the rule of law when they apparently have none themselves.” 

Other bills passed include

• AB 75 to require the state Department of Justice to collect and report a list of facts about each criminal case filed in Wisconsin. It passed 54-43. Rep. Russell Goodwin (D-Milwaukee) joined the Republicans in voting for the bill. 
• AB 87 to require a person convicted of child trafficking to pay restitution immediately, and would authorize the seizure of their assets in lieu of payment. It also would require that anyone convicted of a felony must pay all outstanding financial obligations from their conviction before their right to vote is restored. It passed 53-44.

• AB 74 to require public school boards, private school governing bodies and charter school operators to notify the parent or guardian of a student who is an alleged victim or target of a school employee’s sexual misconduct. It passed in a voice vote.
• AB 78 to allow municipalities to impound a reckless driver’s vehicle whether or not it belongs to the driver. It also requires police to determine if the vehicle has been reported stolen, and if it has been, to release it to the original owner at no cost. It passed in a voice vote.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The Milwaukee public school district struggles with a “culture resistant to change” that has undermined its ability to function properly, disproportionately harming its most vulnerable students, an audit ordered by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and released on Thursday found.

Evers, who served as Wisconsin’s superintendent of schools before becoming governor, ordered the independent audit last year after it became known the district failed to submit financial reports to the state leading to the resignation of the district’s superintendent and the withholding of funding by state officials.

The audit found that the Milwaukee Public Schools district, which is the state’s largest, with more than 66,000 students, must make sweeping, high-level changes to be more transparent with parents and taxpayers.

“MPS must make systemic changes to ensure that students — particularly the most vulnerable — are at the center of every decision,” the audit by MGT of America Consulting said. “Ultimately, this work is in service of students, whose future success hinges on a district capable of delivering equitable, high-quality education.”

Auditors identified “critical issues stemming from leadership and staff turnover, fragmented planning, outdated systems, and unproductive reporting protocols, which have led to siloed operations and inefficient practices.”

Evers, in a statement, urged the district to quickly accept the audit’s 29 recommendations.

“This audit is a critical next step for getting MPS back on track and, ultimately, improving outcomes for our kids,” Evers said.

The school district said in a statement that the audit will serve as a guide for improvement.

“While acknowledging the need for focused support, the report makes clear that we have an opportunity to build on this momentum, strengthening our schools and communities while creating a more unified path forward,” the district said.

The audit was released two days after Milwaukee Public Schools announced it was hiring former Boston Public Schools Superintendent Brenda Cassellius as its new superintendent. The audit also comes amid a race for the state superintendent of schools, in which school and student performance is a top issue.

Evers made $5.5 million in public funds available for a pair of audits. The first one cost $2.5 million, and Evers said the remaining $3 million will be used to help the district implement the audit’s recommendations. He is proposing that an additional $5 million be spent to address future audit results, including one pending related to instruction.

The money would only be awarded if the state is satisfied that the district is making progress, Evers said.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Milwaukee school audit finds widespread problems hurting Wisconsin’s largest district is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Unless things change soon, it appears unlikely that the city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee Public Schools will meet the Feb. 17 deadline to place at least 25 student resource officers in schools.

Wisconsin Act 12, a law enacted in summer 2023, mandated that police officers be placed in MPS and stipulated that they must first complete 40 hours of training through the National Association of School Resource Officers.

This has yet to happen.

A school resource officer is a law enforcement officer who works full time in collaboration with a school district, according to Act 12.

School resource officers typically carry firearms, according to the National Association of School Resource Officers.

No trainings scheduled

Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers, said no Milwaukee Police Department officers have completed or are scheduled to take the weeklong training before Feb. 17. 

“We are never going to recommend that an officer start working in a school without first being put through this training,” Canady said. “We’re talking about the most unique assignment in law enforcement: putting men and women in schools and trusting them to do good work with adolescents in the school environment.”

MPD did not confirm its timeline for training or whether it has enough officers who have completed the training in the past.

Even if there were officers with past training, though, that wouldn’t necessarily be the best or safest option, Canady said.

“We don’t have a timeline on when you should retake the training,” but “there have been massive changes” in the past five years, Canady said. 

Subjects that have been updated or added include training on how adolescent brains develop, forms of bias and how to understand trauma, he said.

A spokesperson for MPD deferred all questions to the City Attorney’s Office, stating the department is “unaware of the status of the agreement.”

Several attempts to speak with the City Attorney’s Office were unsuccessful as were attempts to speak with every member of the Milwaukee Board of School Directors except one. 

Training is the most important concern when it comes to officers in schools for Henry Leonard, Milwaukee Public Schools board director of District 7.

Without this training, Leonard said he fears “a haphazard approach to this and it turns into a disaster.”

Next steps

There are no consequences for having not met the 2024 deadline stipulated by Act 12, according to an analyst with the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, a nonpartisan agency that provides research and legal services to lawmakers.

An additional hearing has been scheduled if the Feb. 17 deadline is not met.

Jeff Fleming, a spokesman for Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, said there have been some productive meetings between the city and MPS.

“The Mayor is optimistic the outstanding issues can be resolved,” he wrote in an email to NNS.

How we got here

In 2016, MPS pulled officers from inside its schools and, four years later, ended a contract with MPD for patrols outside its buildings.

Act 12 required the city to beef up its police force by 2034 and ordered officers back into MPS by Jan. 1, 2024. That deadline came and passed as the school district and city jostled over who would pay the estimated $2 million cost to fund the officers. 

Pressure to bring officers back into schools picked up after a mother of an MPS student who was bullied sued the city and school district for not meeting Act 12 requirements.

Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge David Borowski decided in favor of the mother, ruling that the city of Milwaukee and MPS are responsible for getting officers in schools by Feb. 17.

Impact on current officer shortage

NNS reported in December about hiring challenges within MPD as the number of new recruits wasn’t enough to offset the retirement and departure of other officers or potentially the new requirements of Act 12.

Leon Todd, executive director of the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission, said officers placed at MPS would come from the current ranks of the MPD, which could stretch the department’s already thin ranks.

“One of our top priorities is to grow the size of MPD, and we obviously want to limit the strain,” Todd said. “While these officers would be placed in MPS and wouldn’t be available to take other calls for service, the number of calls are going to be reduced as they won’t need to respond because they will already have officers in schools.”

According to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article, there were 40,643 calls to police from MPS-associated addresses from 2013 to 2024, although 7% of those calls were during nighttime hours.

The Fire and Police Commission is typically in charge of hiring all new officers. But because the school resource officers are going to be current officers, Todd said, the police chief or the department’s executive command staff will decide who is sent into schools. 

Canady emphasized the importance of carefully selecting those officers.

“There should be input from the school community,” Canady said. “These should be officers who are veterans, who have been with the department at least three years, so we know something about their character. They should be officers who have shown sincere interest in working with youth.” 

Leaders Igniting Transformation, a youth-led nonprofit in Milwaukee, doesn’t want officers back in schools at all. 

“We are angry and terrified at the thought of placing armed police officers back in Milwaukee classrooms, who have shown time and time again that they are unfit to work with students and have no place in our schools,” a recent statement from the group said.

News414 is a service journalism collaboration between Wisconsin Watch and Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service that addresses the specific issues, interests, perspectives and information needs identified by residents of central city Milwaukee neighborhoods. Learn more at our website or sign up for our texting service here.

Will police officers be placed in Milwaukee public schools before Feb. 17 deadline? Not likely is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

More than a year after ending its decade-long affiliation with the Milwaukee Education Partnership, Milwaukee Public Schools is still trying to recoup money from the organization for work it never performed. 

MPS sent an invoice to Milwaukee Education Partnership on Dec. 19, 2023, for $64,170. The district sent four follow-up invoices to the organization before turning the matter over to Kohn Law Firm in May 2024, according to records obtained by WPR. 

The school district is still awaiting payment from the now-defunct organization, which was led by Gerard Randall, a top Wisconsin GOP official who helped secure the Republican National Convention for Milwaukee.

Randall did not respond to requests for comment from WPR. 

School board member Missy Zombor said the money Randall owes to MPS could be used to serve students. 

“That’s potentially an educator in front of a student,” Zombor said. “I mean, $64,000 is not a small amount of money, so not being able to recoup those funds impacts students directly.” 

MPS ended its relationship with Randall after reporting by WPR in collaboration with Wisconsin Watch brought the questionable history of his nonprofit to light.

During its relationship with MPS, Milwaukee Education Partnership received nearly $1.3 million in no-bid district contracts, promising to improve student achievement in the district. 

In 2022, the partnership received $64,170. That money was for the group’s Milwaukee Connects program, which aims to “enhance the pipeline of graduates from Milwaukee to Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” according to the contract.

The contract required the partnership to provide 10 graduating MPS students with semester-long paid internships to include professional mentoring, housing and transportation between Oct. 1, 2022, and Sept. 30, 2023.

In an email exchange last year with WPR,  Randall said “a cohort is being developed for the semester beginning January 2024.”

He would not answer further questions.

The students were never provided mentoring or internships, but Randall did receive the payment, according to documents obtained by WPR. 

Milwaukee Education Partnership was also listing several high-profile officials in tax filings as board officers without their knowledge. 

They included Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly, former Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent Keith Posley, former Milwaukee Area Technical College President Vicki Martin and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Chancellor Mark Mone.

Despite the controversy, Randall  continues to serve on a variety of high-profile boards, including the Wisconsin GOP, UW-Madison’s Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership and Visit Milwaukee. 

After being elected to the MPS board in 2023, Zombor began examining various MPS no-bid contracts. When she visited the Milwaukee Education Partnership website, she found it featured years-old financial reports and listed names of people no longer associated with the group.

Zombor began asking questions, which ultimately led to Posley suspending the district’s relationship with Milwaukee Education Partnership in November 2023.

Zombor says she would like MPS to explore its options for awarding contracts.

“It feels like this contract was potentially for a fictitious nonprofit,” Zombor said.  “We have to trust that when vendors or partners come to MPS that they’re being honest about the services they provide. But I think we have to continue to enhance the accountability of the procurement process so that we can safeguard public money.”

This story was originally published by WPR.

Milwaukee Public Schools still trying to recoup money from GOP official’s defunct nonprofit is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.