MILWAUKEE — Candidates for the next Milwaukee Public Schools superintendent had a full agenda on Thursday. They started their day in the classroom at three schools, then took questions from parents and community members at two public forums.
As the district faces contention over financial reporting, school resource officers, school closures and staggeringly low test scores, it was only fitting for the first question to ask how candidates would carry out transparent communication.
“I have a rule that I get back to everybody within 24 hours,” Dr. Brenda Cassellius, former superintendent of Boston Public Schools said. “I usually give out my personal cell phone number to people, and I’ve found that’s a great way to build trust.”
Now the executive director of clean energy non-profit Fresh Energy in Minnesota, Dr. Cassellius touted her successes with lobbying for community school funding and increasing graduation rates.
“I am like a hawk on graduation. Graduation rates have gone up everywhere I’ve been.”
Dr. Joshua Starr told the public they would see him out in the community more than inside the office — what he called “where they are” meetings.
“I don’t like people to come to me. I like to go out.” He outlined a procedure for communication at MPS: “Folks need to know what the decision-making process is, what the data are that’s going to be used to actually make the decision, who gets to make the decision and then what all the ramifications and implications are.”
Dr. Starr held leadership positions in metropolitan areas in New York, and most recently was superintendent at the fifteenth largest district in the country at Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland. Throughout his career, he’s championed peer review teacher evaluation systems.
Now a managing partner at The Center for Model Schools at education company HMH, Dr. Starr said he wouldn’t hold back from making hard choices and called for “dismantling barriers” to equitable education at MPS.
The candidate who would be a newcomer to a district as large as MPS made the case that he’s up for the challenge: “I don’t need a policy to be transparent and communicative — I just do that naturally,” said Dr. Andraé Townsel.
The first Black superintendent of Calvert County Public Schools in Maryland, Dr. Townsel rattled off a list of nearly 10 teaching and administration positions he’s held in education since 2009. He touted his work rewriting a budget to account for an unexpected $22.5 million cut, and later working with legislatures to restore that state aid.
Dr. Townsel brought ideas for staff retention and SRO implementation.
“Celebrate your staff. Give service awards. Consider retention opportunities [with] bonuses…tell the story when you have a teacher doing phenomenal things.”
Although all candidates indicated they would prioritize compliance with the law to implement SROs, Dr. Townsel took a clear stance on the role of police in schools. He offered strategies to make SROs function more like counselors and floated the idea of MPS creating its own police department, citing Detroit Public Schools as an example.
“My philosophy is anything administrative is school. A resource officer, they don’t handle discipline. That’s how you misuse it. That’s how you open that school to prison pipeline.”
The Board of School Directors plans to name its choice by late February or early March. The new superintendent’s contract is expected to start July 1.
