As the Milwaukee Health Department begins reviewing school reopening plans, a growing number of the city's charter and private voucher schools have announced they will begin the school year online rather than risk exposing students and staff to the deadly coronavirus.
Milwaukee Excellence Charter School, Carmen Schools of Science and Technology, Messmer Catholic Schools, St. Marcus Lutheran School and others have joined Milwaukee Public Schools in announcing a virtual-only start of the school year — some beginning this week.
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School leaders cite a number of reasons, including parental preference and the delay by the Milwaukee Health Department in setting criteria for schools to reopen. But an overarching concern, they say, is the high rates of COVID-19 infections and deaths in the Black and Latino neighborhoods where many of their students and workers live.
"This virus has disproportionately impacted our Black and brown communities," said Jennifer Lopez, chief executive officer of Carmen, which serves about 2,100 students in five charter schools on the south and far northwest sides of the city.
"There's a fear, especially in our multigenerational homes, that when we go back to school, (students and staff) could come back and unintentionally spread that to a parent or grandparent," she said. "No one wants to be responsible for someone dying."
The Milwaukee Health Department announced in July that any school that wants to reopen during the pandemic, will need its plans approved by the agency. And last week, it released criteria schools would need to meet to be considered.
So far, plans have been submitted for at least 30 schools, including those that draw students from neighborhoods that have seen high rates of coronavirus infection and death, such as Bruce-Guadalupe Community School and Cristo Rey on the south side and St. Marcus, just north of downtown.
The United Community Center, which operates Bruce-Guadalupe and Acosta Middle School, said it still hopes to offer in-person classes for families who want and need that, if it gets the green light from the Health Department.
But Cristo Rey and St. Marcus, both of which had hoped to open have students onsite, now say they will begin the school year online.
It was a particularly tough call for Cristo Rey, which had hoped to welcome its 420 students into its new $33 million building at 1818 W. National Ave. this fall. Instead, President Andrew Stith said Friday, the school will open virtually on Aug. 24 and bring students into the building in phases when the Health Department deems that possible.
"Our first step will be to invite students back to have targeted, small-group academic interventions. We'll engage students where we can around counseling services ... physical activities outside. Maybe offering tech support or food service. And then we'll take it from there," Stith said.
"This is a really complex decision for families and our students, and given the data and how anxious some people are, we want to make sure we're taking the right steps for our community."
Milwaukee has been among the Wisconsin cities hardest hit by the coronavirus, with more than 16,000 cases and 266 deaths, with Black and Latino residents disproportionately affected.
While children who contract the coronavirus are likely to experience mild or no symptoms, the latest research suggests children over 10 are effective spreaders of the virus. And many public health experts have raised concerns about schools reopening in communities where the infection rate is 5% or more of those tested, a threshold that suggests a community has the virus under control.
Since Aug. 1, Milwaukee's rate has hovered between 5.6% and 8.5%. But the average rates in some city neighborhoods over the last two weeks as of Friday were as high as 25% or more, according to an analysis of census tracts by the Journal Sentinel.
St. Marcus, which serves almost 1,000 students at its school in Milwaukee's Brewer's Hill neighborhood, was hoping to bring back nearly all of its students for in-person instruction when it opened Tuesday.
"We have a huge facility, and we felt like we had the ability to do that safely with guidelines in place," said Superintendent Henry Tyson.
But it shifted gears, telling parents in an email last week that everyone but preschoolers would begin the year online, and that older students would return in phases, beginning Sept. 8 if the Health Department approves its plans.
Tyson cited "the high rate of COVID-19 cases in Milwaukee coupled with onsite infections that have affected members of our staff" as factors, in the email to parents.
But he said in an interview that the July announcement by the Health Department that schools could not reopen without an approved plan, and then its delay in providing criteria for those plans, forced the decision.
"The whole process has been frustrating," said Tyson. "When we hit early August and we still didn't have clarity, we said, OK, we've got to create a level of certainty for people, and the only way to do that is to do a remote start."
The Health Department's criteria were delayed, sources inside and outside the agency said, because it was waiting for guidance from the state Department of Health Services on what to do when cases surfaced in schools and at what point schools should close — guidance they said was never provided.
Like MPS, most of the charter and voucher schools in the city serve predominantly low-income children of color. So, like MPS — but on a much smaller scale — they are scrambling to reach and prepare all of their families, some of which may have moved or lost contact.
Many of their families don't have computer devices or Wi-Fi, so the schools are distributing laptops and hot spots.
Cristo Rey, which bases its entire program on work-study opportunities for students, is remaking its curriculum because students won't be going into workplaces, at least for now.
Some schools, including Milwaukee Excellence and Messmer, made the decision to start virtually even before the Health Department announced schools would need approved plans to reopen.
Milwaukee Excellence Executive Director Maurice Thomas and Messmer President Jim Piatt both cited the high rates of infection and deaths in the Black communities they serve and said they couldn't in good conscience bring teachers and students back into their buildings for the start of school.
Thomas' decision may have been easier than some. He rents a building from MPS and contracts with it for such services as cleaning and meals, so he would have had to find other vendors. But it's also what most of his families and teachers wanted. In the first round of surveys, he said, 90% of families preferred virtual over in-person instruction.
"And teachers are nervous. They want to be home, too," said Thomas, whose school serves about 540 students in grades 6-10.
"Last year, 70% of our staff was African-American. All of these people live in Milwaukee, and they were dealing with it too, with family members being sick.
"We had to make a decision that works for our families and staff. We thought being virtual right now is the only way to make school safe. And, until the science tells us otherwise, we're not going to rush back."
At Messmer, which serves about 1,400 students in one high and two elementary schools, Piatt said the hope is to bring students back with a hybrid virtual-in-person model beginning in October. But that will depend on the trajectory of the virus, which some health experts expect to spike in late fall.
Piatt pointed to a recent analysis showing that the mortality rate in majority-Black counties was 3.5 times the national average, saying "that's a piece of data I just can't shake."
"I can't tell my students and families that Black Lives Matter and then gloss over these numbers," Piatt said.
"If the data get better, we'll be thrilled to bring kids back. But right now, there's no indication in the neighborhoods we serve that I can put 250 kids and a teacher in a classroom, look them in the eye and say that's a safe setup at this point."
Patricia Hoben, executive director of the nonprofit City Forward Collective, which has been working with dozens of schools on their reopening plans, said she is not surprised that many are moving cautiously.
"What we're asking school leaders to do is beyond anything they've ever been trained or equipped to do in the past. And they're doing that with uncertain resources," she said.
"We're talking about whole new patterns of operation that have not been done before. There are no strategies they can pull out of a toolkit for this. ... They need more time."
Daphne Chen of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
Contact Annysa Johnson at anjohnson@jrn.com or 414-224-2061. Follow her on Twitter at @JSEdbeat. And join the Journal Sentinel conversation about education issues at https://ift.tt/2USbs20.
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