Tag Archives: South Milwaukee School District

December 2, 2012 · 5:03 pm

Calling Out An Innovative Education Solution

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a great story on the Connects Learning Center, an innovative partnership between the South Milwaukee, Cudahy and Oak Creek-Franklin school districts aimed at helping struggling students.

Learn more about the charter school here. From the article:

Connects is a charter school run by multiple districts that work together to provide a cost-efficient alternative path for students.

Last year, Kazmierski and a few other students commuted to Connects from Franklin High School; others came from Cudahy, South Milwaukee and Oak Creek-Franklin school districts.

Three of those districts – Cudahy, South Milwaukee and Oak Creek-Franklin – share responsibility for running Connects and a fourth – Franklin – pays for student seats.

The districts say it’s a successful example of offering services better by acting together than by going it alone.

Students say Connects helps them accelerate their path to graduation and improve their chances of success.

“You work at your own pace,” Kazmierski explained. “You don’t have to move with 30 other kids, and if you don’t understand something you can still stay on that same topic and work with the teachers here.”

And check out my previous post on Connects here.

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October 23, 2012 · 12:35 pm

Grading South Milwaukee Schools: State Issues New School Report Cards

The Wisconsin Department of Instruction is out with a new take on school report cards.

Check out the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story here, and here is the DPI site showing how South Milwaukee schools performed.

So, how did we do? Well, there are a number of different measures presented in the report card, but here are the overall scores for each school:

So, mixed results. But there is some explaining to do.

The South Milwaukee School District provides its own context for the report cards here. It includes an action plan for improving student achievement in reading and math and ways it is driving toward better “post-secondary readiness.”

My take: I have mixed feelings on report cards like this. I always welcome common metrics to judge performance, and I see their effectiveness every day in my day job.

But it’s also clear that metrics like this don’t tell the whole story when it comes to rating schools. So many factors outside of a district or school’s control drive performance and achievement – especially income levels and other demographics – that it’s difficult to get a fair comparison across districts and even schools within a district.

Forget apples to apples, or even apples to oranges. Data sets like this can be apples to tomatoes – in other words, an OK comparison, at best.

Instead of a “one-size-fits-all” report card, I prefer the eye test … what I see when I see my 4- and 7-year-old come home from Rawson Elementary every day. And that’s two young people who love learning and love their school, two kids who are gaining knowledge every minute thanks to strong school and district leadership, teachers, staff, facilities and curriculum.

Based on that daily “report card” – not the ones released Monday — I’m excited for what the future holds for our kids in South Milwaukee schools.

With all due respect to the DPI, my expectations have been exceeded, and they’re exceeded every day.

Of course, I’d like to know what you think. Post your comments below!

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September 18, 2012 · 11:45 am

Innovative Program: State Workforce Development Secretary Stops In South Milwaukee To Award Grant

Update: Here is Milwaukee Journal Sentinel coverage.

Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development Secretary Reggie Newson stopped by South Milwaukee High School Tuesday to announce a state grant piloting an innovative student career initiative.

It’s called My Life! My Plan! and it’s another example of the concrete steps our local schools are taking to prepare their students for the work force.

Check out the press release. From it:

The My Life! My Plan! Program was developed by the Greater Milwaukee Committee as a one-day workshop in which high school students meet with mentors from the business community to explore careers and develop a plan for success after graduation, whether in the workplace or at a post-secondary institution.

My Life! My Plan! was developed by the Greater Milwaukee Committee, which supports initiatives that enhance the business environment and quality of life in the Milwaukee area. Under the plan, members of the business community volunteer as career coaches to work with students in identifying potential career options and developing options for students that will enable them to meet their career goal. The students and mentors work together to complete a workbook that helps students to identify how their interests match up with career options. Students then develop a plan to gather necessary information and determine the steps necessary to successfully begin their identified career.

My Life! My Plan! was previously piloted to 300 students earlier this year. The $30,000 DWD grant is going to the Milwaukee Area Workforce Investment Board (MAWIB), which will administer the grant to serve more than 3,000 youth in area districts including Milwaukee Public Schools and the South Milwaukee School District.

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August 31, 2012 · 1:48 pm

Telling The South Milwaukee School District Story

I had the chance to attend the South Milwaukee School District’s annual Opening Day celebration this week, as the district welcomed back teachers, staff and administrators for a new school year with a special event that also included community leaders.

A key theme continued to emerge: The district’s commitment to telling its story to all who will listen. And it’s a compelling story.

To further that story, district leaders unveiled a series of videos at Opening Day aimed at grounding viewers in what the district is and what it stands for– and how all of South Milwaukee benefits from the work going on at our schools.

Check the YouTube vidoes out here, and check out the district’s two-pager summarizing its mission, vision, goals and objectives.

My ask: Spread the word about the district and its great work. As a parent of a soon-to-be (next week!) Rawson Elementary kindergartner and second-grader, I am proud to tell that story every chance I get.

You should be too.

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March 27, 2012 · 10:17 pm

Sullivan Turns Focus To Worker Training

Former Bucyrus CEO Tim Sullivan has long championed worker training as a key issue for growing Wisconsin’s economy.

Now, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, he is “drafting set of recommendations that will change how Wisconsin allocates hundreds of millions of dollars each year in federal job training funds and simultaneously reform the state’s education system.”

“It’s a big task with a lot of moving parts,” he told the newspaper.

Is it ever.

One key part of Sullivan’s work is taking a fresh look at high school curriculum, better matching student skills with companies’ needs — something that I know the South Milwaukee School District is already focused on as part of its long-range planning process. From the newspaper:

He cited a study by Georgetown University that found that Wisconsin will need an estimated 925,000 skilled workers by 2018 just to replace those on the verge of retiring or meet the creation of new jobs. At least 588,000 of those jobs will require a minimum of a two-year technical training degree.

But the state’s schools don’t produce those numbers – which is all the more troublesome in a state that leads the nation in per-capita manufacturing employment, Sullivan said. Starting in the 1980s, many high schools discontinued shop classes, industrial arts, and trade and technical schools. Educators, parents and students focused on curriculum that prepared students for four-year college degrees, even though a degree in the humanities will not land anyone a job on a production line, he said.

That will require a new approach to the way high schools structure their curriculum. It also means a renewed educational push in grade school to supply high schools with students that have basic math and reading skills.

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February 22, 2011 · 10:26 am

South Milwaukee School Unions Ratify Contracts … and Wait

Five unions representing teachers and other employees of the South Milwaukee School District ratified new contracts over the weekend, Superintendent Rita Olson confirmed to me in an email.

Now they wait to see what will happen in Madison as to their future of their pay, benefits and collective bargaining rights.  

From the highlights Dr. Olson provided:

  • All steps given in the 2009-2010 and 2010-11 school years would be honored and individuals would not be required to move backwards to previously held salaries. 
  • The contract would have a 0 percent per cell increase in the first year and a 1.28 percent per cell increase in the second year. 
  • Effective July 1, 2011,  health insurance premiums would be increased to 9 percent or current law, whichever is greater.
  • There is also a cap on health insurance contributions for retirees, and staggered years of service to qualify for retirement health insurance benefits.

This sounds fair and reasonable to me … and a great example of what I continue to say in the debate over the governor’s union-busting plan:  Let local units of government (in this case, the school district) work with their unions to control costs and deal with budget pressures as they see fit.

State government should not force our hands, especially when it comes to what we can and can’t collectively bargain for with our workers.

To the governor and those in the Senate and Assembly: Accept the compromise proposed by Senate Democrats, which gives you the savings you need to help solve the state budget crisis and allows local governments to deal with looming shared revenue cuts.

I thought that’s what this was supposed to be about anyway. Isn’t it?

Of course, I know it’s not. I get it. This is first and foremost about breaking public unions and ending more than 50 years of collective bargaining with barely a debate — and no desire for any level of compromise. It’s about balancing the budget on the back of middle class workers. And it’s wrong.

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February 16, 2011 · 10:59 pm

The South Milwaukee School District’s Reaction to Walker’s Union Busting …

Update: School Superintendent Rita Olson has informed me that the School Board did indeed approve contracts for five of its unions on Wednesday. The deals still need to be ratified by each union. I will keep you posted when I get more details.

The South Milwaukee School Board is working to approve union contracts with teachers and other represented employees ahead of new restrictions on organized labor coming soon out of Madison.

Check out the Journal Sentinel story here. From it:

In South Milwaukee, Superintendent Rita Olson said her school system does not have a tentative agreement with its unions yet, but she hopes the board might be able to make offers that would be accepted by all of its employee bargaining units at the Wednesday meeting. She said the sides have been negotiating for a long time and are not far from settling anyway.

“We want to offer a voluntary settlement before everything goes into effect,” Olson said of Walker’s proposal.

School administrators have been told that Walker’s changes would go into effect immediately and affect any unsettled contracts.

I am anxious to see what kind of contract settlement is reached, if one is at all. I will keep you posted.

In the meantime, I commend the district for its willingness to work with its union employees in the 11th hour to get a deal done that I’m expecting will be fair. It goes back to the crux of my argument on this issue: Let local units of government decide what’s best when it comes to how they bargain with their unions and what they bargain for.

Let the School Board and school unions, in this instance, hammer out a contract how they see fit.

There is simply no room for the governor and state legislature to get involved here … except, of course, when the goal is to decapitate public sector unions, which is Scott Walker’s ultimate aim in this whole charade.

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January 25, 2011 · 12:06 pm

Updating the South Milwaukee School District Planning Initiative

From the page to the real world …

As I’ve written about, I’ve been proud to take part in the South Milwaukee School District’s long-range visioning and planning process. Well, that process is wrapping up, and now the real work begins: Bringing those plans to life.

You can learn more about the process and three broad goals the group developed around academics, communications and relationships and finances in this two-pager. We’d like your feedback on the draft document — and your thoughts on how we can make achieve these goals — as the group meets again this week.

Given my day job at MillerCoors and my role as an alderman, I am especially intrigued by some of the thinking around the communications and relationships goal. I look forward to better partnering with the district going forward and see some real possibilities there.

Post your comments below, and feel free to email me anytime.

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November 9, 2009 · 10:16 am

More Headlines of Interest …

Some interesting reading for South Milwaukee and the 4th District …

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