Resistance from teachers mounts as Milwaukee's public high schools reopen for some students

Milwaukee’s public high schools reopened for more students Monday, days after some teachers laid down outside a school to protest unsafe COVID conditions. 

After opening for younger students earlier this month, Milwaukee Public Schools have reported 27 test-confirmed COVID-19 cases in the last seven days among staff and students listed as being physically onsite.

At least one school, Garland Elementary, has had to close for two weeks due to COVID cases. 

Seniors, along with any high school students deemed in danger of failing, were invited to return this week, while other high school students must continue virtual learning for the rest of the school year. Students in all grade levels were given the option to stay virtual. 

On Saturday, the Milwaukee Black Educators Caucus led a protest outside Gaenslen School, across from school board member Bob Peterson’s home. They laid on the ground to represent potential deaths from COVID spread in schools. 

Caucus Chair Angela Harris, who teaches first grade, said without better safety measures, she worries about her kids coming to school and bringing home the virus, which has disproportionately affected Black and brown families. Newer, more contagious variants of the virus drove school-based outbreaks in Michigan’s recent COVID surge. 

“With our district being predominantly Black and brown, we have the chance to particularly become a super-spreader in the community and want to prevent that at all costs,” she said. “And that starts with us having a safe plan in place as we return into our buildings.”

Peterson, one of five school board members who voted for the April reopening plan, said he was away at a funeral when the protesters marched to his home Saturday. He said he would be willing to talk with them and stood by the decision to reopen, given the mass vaccination of MPS staff and significant spending on safety measures. 

"I believe parents have the right to decide if their child should return to face-to-face learning or continue to learn remotely," Peterson said in an email. 

Since schools began reopening this month, MPS staff has made more than 500 reports of safety concerns to their union, the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association, according to union president Amy Mizialko. 

Some staff say they don’t have enough room to space out students or enough adults in their buildings. Other issues include students and staff not wearing masks properly, and a lack of protective equipment.

Class sizes are supposed to be capped at 18 students to reduce COVID risks, with any additional students moving to overflow rooms. As of April 15, the district was seeking more than 250 additional substitute teachers to help with these rooms and other staffing needs. 

Alondra Garcia, who teaches second grade at Allen-Field Elementary, said she has 17 students in her classroom and it's hard to keep them apart from each other and from herself. 

"They want to be close to you. For me to tell them constantly, no, you need to be away, it’s impossible," she said. "The reality is they’re wiggly. Those desks are always moving, they’re always getting up."

Teachers said it's especially difficult to manage classrooms while at the same time teaching their students who are logging in remotely and watching them on a camera. 

Riley Jessett, a science specialist at Carson Academy, said he's seen remote students becoming less engaged as he juggles the needs of students in person. 

"We used to be putting on a show for everybody at home," Jessett said. "I noticed some people are dropping off in the morning and not coming back."

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Classrooms close due to COVID

Since the youngest MPS students returned to buildings nearly two weeks ago, the district has reported at least 39 students and 12 staff members have tested positive for COVID, according to weekly reports and a dashboard. 

In some cases, these students or staff may have already been learning or working remotely. Of the 33 positive cases reported in the past seven days, 27 were students and staff listed as attending school in person, while others were remote. 

A single case in a classroom is supposed to trigger the whole classroom to close and transition to remote learning for a period of time. A spokesperson for MPS, Earl Arms, confirmed two classroom closures as of April 20 and has not provided an updated number. 

Mizialko said she has heard of at least 10 classroom closures and believes the number is closer to between 30 and 40. 

Three cases in a school should trigger a full school closure, under the district's plan. At least two schools have three open onsite cases, according to the district's dashboard. Arms said he was not aware of any school closures. 

Arms said there could be cases where students were signed up for in-person learning but never came to school because they were quarantining and later reported testing positive. In that situation, the case would not trigger a classroom or school closure. 

MPS began surveillance testing last week. District officials planned to test 10% of students in one group of schools last week and 10% of the students in the other group this week, continuing to switch off using pool testing for the rest of the school year. Arms did not say whether there were any positive results in those first tests. 

Cases appear to be getting reported with increasing frequency. Just on Tuesday, 10 cases were reported, including seven people listed as onsite and three listed as remote. 

Contact Rory at rory.linnane@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @RoryLinnane.