CHARTER SCHOOL REVIEW COMMITTEE

200 E. Wells Street City of Milwaukee Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53202 Meeting Minutes CHARTER SCHOOL REVIEW COMMITTEE KEVIN INGRAM, CHAIR Joyce Mallory, Vice-Chair Ruben Burgos, Samuel L. Coleman, Desiree Pointer-Mace, Raynetta Hill and Aycha Sawa Staff Assistant: Linda Elmer, (414) 286-2231 Fax: 286-3456, lelmer@milwaukee.gov Gayle Peay, 288-1540 Wednesday, March 30, 2022 5:00 PM Virtual Please join the meeting from your computer, tablet or smartphone. https://meet.goto.com/981071669 You can also dial in using your phone. United States: +1 (571) 317-3112 Access Code: 981-071-669 1. Roll call. Meeting convened: 5:02 p.m. All members present. 2. Review and approval of the minutes of the Feb. 9th, 2022 meeting. Ms. Pointer-Mace moved, seconded by Ms. Mallory, for approval of the minutes. There were no objections. 3. 210573 Communication relating to the 2021-23 activities of Milwaukee Math and Science Academy. Sponsors: THE CHAIR Mr. Alper Akyurek said the school began in-person education in January in the new building. He thinks the students and teachers are adjusting to the new norms. This will be his last year as principal. There is a smooth transition plan in place in regards to short- and long-term goals. Ms. Crystal Bielmeier will be the new principal. He will stay around a couple of months after the school term ends to serve as a resource. Ms. Bielmeier said they are doing "Success for All", the 5 programs, from K4-8th grade and it has been going well and all teachers and administrators were involved and the trainers were impressed with the teachers' enthusiasm, focus and questions. All students, even the kindergartners, are aware of what will be done and what the program is. The kids' writing seems to be improving as every day they have a write-on question and even kindergartners are responding in complete sentences. The students are feeling confident and working harder, which boosts the general scores. The K5 students' spelling is improving and they are already reading on their own or with City of Milwaukee Page 1 CHARTER SCHOOL REVIEW Meeting Minutes March 30, 2022 COMMITTEE support. She thinks this program will help the students get caught up quicker and the younger elementary students are really enjoying the program. The entire staff has been divided up into committees. Ms. Pointer-Mace noted that phonics needed to be paired with making children leaders and mentors. Ms. Pointer-Mace encouraged Maestro to fully support Ms. Bielmeier and not to presume that she doesn't need support based upon her experience. Ms. Bielmeier expects to see more students meeting the testing benchmarks and the students are able to get past the "team" talk about making group decisions on an answer. One of the teams does focus on student attendance and another on parent involvement. Ms. Bielmeier has been meeting with the teachers and listening to their concerns and suggestions and includes teachers in her decisions. Ms. Mallory applauded the school for working through its probation and for them to work with parents, as well as create a parent group, such as a PTA or PTSO. The more you can engage and motivate parents, the better it will be for student retention. Mr. Ingram thanked Ms. Bielmeier for her longevity and her leadership and to Maestro for chartering the school. The test results seem to show that the school is on the right track. Ms. Pointer-Mace moved, seconded by Ms. Mallory, to remove the school from probation, with regular monitoring. There were no objections. 4. 210574 Communication relating to administrative matters of the Charter School Review Committee for the 2021-23 school years. Sponsors: THE CHAIR Mr. Ingram said the Committee has seen the revisions and just asked that this application be accepted or denied. Ms. Pointer-Mace appreciated all the thoughtfulness on this proposal, but she doesn't see an understanding of what needs to be in place for an integration of arts throughout the school program and it doesn't rise to the threshold of a unique offering. She appreciates the revisions, but her evaluation and concerns remain. Mr. Coleman also appreciated the thoughtful revisions and saw a pretty significant alignment with a traditional school in terms of school hours and number of instructional days. He was also not clear what makes this different from a traditional school. Ms. Mallory had asked to see how achievement gaps would be closed using the school's framework, but she's not sure the group of students needing that the most would benefit the most and using art as the motivator to get them there. Her other concern was ability to recruit and retain teachers. Ms. Pointer-Mace noted that the specific intersection of talents required of teachers is pretty hard to achieve and no hiring or recruiting strategy was shown or spoke to building that capacity with existing teachers. Mr. Ingram noted that a big value that was left out was what uniquely combining arts and STEM education. There was also not even one example of how arts would reinforce STEM education and didn't draw upon any of their other school administration experience nor examples of art-infused education in other localities and how that concept or model would be applied here in Milwaukee. Ms. Pointer-Mace noted that there are schools with a STEAM focus (STEM and arts), but this application did not provide that. Mr. Burgos moved to deny the application, seconded by Ms. Pointer-Mace. There were no objections. Ms. Mallory had spoken with Ms. Peay and, based upon the amount of time required, new applications should not be accepted until the application process is revised. She thinks the pandemic has caused a great deal of learning loss and we need to take the City of Milwaukee Page 2 CHARTER SCHOOL REVIEW Meeting Minutes March 30, 2022 COMMITTEE time to evaluate the review process and what the Committee is looking for. A task force should be created of some members of this body, and staff from the charter schools, to research what other charter school review committees require and have applicants know the bar that they must meet. Ms. Peay would also like to research online management systems, so it's not just paper-based, to streamline the process, which would follow after what the expectations/criteria the Committee is looking for. Ms. Pointer-Mace also wondered how valuable it would be to bring charter school leaders into this conversation. Mr. Coleman also supported having specific standards of what the Committee is looking for. Ms. Pointer-Mace said the IPAMA application didn't even show that it had previously even run a school and the applicants need to have room to be innovative on the application. Ms. Mallory would like applicants to have been non-profits to have been in operation a minimum of three years. Ms. Pointer-Mace doesn't want to make it so unattainable to local Milwaukeeans. Ms. Mallory doesn't want to exclude anyone, but she does want a floor or baseline. Mr. Ingram noted that the pandemic has taught us that we cannot go to normal and that we all fail, but we have to learn from our failures. Ms. Pointer-Mace noted that the school has to deeply understand learning and what choices they are making and what results they expect to achieve. Mr. Ingram would like to rotate Committee members to charter school conferences now that the schools are receiving DPI grants. Ms. Mallory moved to create a task force to revise the charter school application and no schools will be chartered during the 2022-23 school year, seconded by Ms. Hill. There were no objections. Meeting adjourned: 6:23 p.m. Linda M. Elmer Staff Assistant This meeting can be viewed in its entirety through the City's Legislative Research Center at http://milwaukee.legistar.com/calendar. City of Milwaukee Page 3