This post originally appeared at https://www.badgerinstitute.org/number-of-half-used-mps-buildings-up-to-20/

Capacity considered as district seeks $252 million in April referendum

According to the Milwaukee Public Schools’ own figures filed with the state, at least 20 of the district’s schools had enrollments last school year that were less than half the building’s capacity.

The figure may be higher: The state’s largest school district appears to have left at least 21 of its up-and-running schools off its legally mandated filing.

The situation is a persistent one as well: Of the 20 schools under half capacity, 19 showed enrollments at less than two-thirds the building’s stated capacity in two previous pre-pandemic filings with the state, in 2016 and 2019, meaning their underutilization has persisted over most of a decade.

In all, according to MPS’ filing, at least 39 schools have enrollment less than two-thirds of the district’s estimate of its capacity, and at least 28 schools have been under two-thirds full in all three years’ filings. MPS’ 2023 filing lists 118 schools, not including the apparently omitted schools but also including some charter schools not run by district staff.

MPS enrollment is down about 40% in the past two decades, and the data raises a fundamental question about how MPS has managed the largely predicable decrease. The reason the district must file an annual report with the Legislature and the Department of Public Instruction, among others, is because lawmakers felt the district was too slow to dispose of surplus real estate — a view fueled by complaints from growing independent charter schools and private schools seeking suitable buildings to expand into.

MPS Superintendent Keith Posley last month told a Milwaukee television station, WDJT-TV 58, that closing underutilized schools wouldn’t save much money, citing cumbersome procedures and issues with the geographic distribution of students.

Retired MPS Superintendent Bill Andrekopoulos, on the other hand, told the Badger Institute last month that the scale of MPS’ underutilization over the course of many years indicates the district does not properly plan either for its ongoing enrollment decline or for its predictable space needs.

The district is asking voters in an April 2 referendum for $252 million more in annual funding than the rising amount specified in state law. By the district’s own reckoning, that would add $432 a year to the property taxes on a $200,000 house in Milwaukee.

Incomplete information

The district’s utilization figures are from the building inventory it filed Aug. 14, 2023 with the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance. The filing includes a scanned spreadsheet listing all school buildings used by the district with, among other things, square footage, number of classrooms, enrollment and the school’s capacity.

It has been reported previously that at least 15 MPS schools are only half-full. But that was based on tables sent by MPS to the state that appear to be incomplete. They omit some citywide magnet schools such as Golda Meir, Milwaukee French Immersion and the Milwaukee School of Languages, and a popular Montessori school on the East Side, all apparently at the bottoms of printed pages and cut off when the pages were scanned as images for filing. It’s impossible to tell how much of their stated capacity those schools were using last school year.

The Badger Institute discovered the apparent error while comparing the list with the earlier years’ filings and with the district’s public list of operating schools. According to the clerk of the Joint Finance Committee, the document as posted was as received from the district. Queries to MPS for the complete list and to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction were not answered by deadline.

Not all MPS schools are underutilized: The district’s figures show at least 16 schools with enrollments more than a third over their stated capacity, one of them a high school, Reagan College Prep, listed at 149% of capacity.

Andrekopoulos, speaking this week to the Badger Institute, said that some MPS schools may genuinely be drawing so many children. Some are popular and offer strong programs.

He cautioned, however, about the data. A veteran district principal who, as superintendent, oversaw the closing of 26 unneeded schools, Andrekopoulos readily reels off details about the classroom layouts of one building or another. He suggests that a full analysis of the district’s capacity requires transparency about methods underlying calculations and an updating of the list of available space.

Indeed, the district’s filing shows reasons for caution. The Obama School of Career and Technical Education, a K-12 school that uses what had been the old Custer High School building, is listed as being slightly over capacity at 1,743 students. In the earlier years’ filings, it came in at 42% and 39% of capacity, with enrollments at just over 600 students. This filing indicates that enrollment figure now includes virtual students, and news coverage has suggested the same. If so, the estimate of 103% utilization is questionable.

The state law requiring the filing does not specify how to calculate capacity. MPS’ listed capacities seemed to amount to about 18 pupils per classroom or about 48 square feet of instructional space per pupil.

High schools

Andrekopoulos in particular critiques the district’s use of its large high schools. One of the schools at less than 50% by the district’s own figures is Madison High School. The district’s filing says that its enrollment of 762 uses only 47% of its 1,629-student capacity. That’s up only slightly from 42% and 46% usage in the earlier years’ filings. 

Among the schools omitted from the 2023 listing are two high schools in large buildings, Washington High School of Information Technology and Marshall High School. The former was 44% and 36% of capacity in the 2016 and 2019 filings, and Marshall was at 62% and 53%. Each building can accommodate well over 1,000 students, according to MPS.

Also low is North Division, listed by the district in 2023 at 60% of capacity, up only slightly from 50% and 44% in earlier filings. Andrekopoulos observed that the building, a comparatively new one for MPS, could host a citywide magnet program of some kind or another, but the location, in a comparatively depressed area of Milwaukee at 11^th and Center streets, may stand in the way moving a high-popularity program there. “Does the community have the will to do that?” he asked.

One option is to let a separate charter school in need of space use excess capacity in buildings, he said. One south-side high school, Casimir Pulaski, enrolled 921 students last year, according to its DPI report card, well under the building’s 1,457-student capacity. A similar enrollment was part of why it came in at 58% of capacity in MPS’ 2016 filing.

But Pulaski now shares the building with a charter school, Carmen High School, and so MPS’ 2023 filing shows a total of 1,673 students in the building.

It’s a good use of space, Andrekopoulos said, and one that didn’t involve the effort of closing a school. He noted, however, that MPS’ teachers union has for years strenuously opposed allowing charter schools to share space in that way.

Patrick McIlheran is the Director of Policy at the Badger Institute. Permission to reprint is granted as long as the author and Badger Institute are properly cited.

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