Vaccinations, seclusion and restraint data and improvements in seven schools were among the items the Milwaukee Public Schools Board of Directors discussed in their regular board meeting on Sept. 24.
Here’s what you need to know.
Interested in seeing more school board updates like this? Let me know at aklaus@milwaukeenns.org.
1. Several vaccination clinics are coming up
Looking to vaccinate your child? MPS Superintendent Brenda Casselius promoted four upcoming vaccination clinics in her monthly board report.
Milwaukee Public Schools notifies families if immunization records are missing or incomplete, and students may be excluded from school if requirements are not met within a reasonable time, said Stephen Davis, former MPS media relations manager, earlier this year.
Students are allowed to attend school while families work to get their required vaccinations or submit a valid exemption as allowed by state law, Davis said.
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services allows vaccination exemptions for medical, religious or personal conviction reasons. Davis said exemption requests in the district have fluctuated from year to year.
Vaccination Clinics
Northwest Health Center: 7630 W. Mill Road
- 2 to 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 2
- 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 10
Recommended bus route: Take the Blue Line to North 76th Street and Mill Road.
Southside Health Center: 1639 S. 23rd St.
- 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 3
- 2 to 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 9
Recommended bus route: Take the Purple Line to Layton and Lapham or Route 56 to South 23rd Street and Greenfield Avenue.
2. Seven schools have exited extra support status
Under federal law, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction identifies two kinds of schools for extra support: Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) schools perform in the bottom 5% of Title I schools overall. Additional Targeted Support and Improvement (ATSI) schools have one group of students, such as students with disabilities, performing that low.
Schools across MPS and the state receive federal grants to improve those scores.
The board celebrated seven schools that have made enough improvements to exit those statuses.
One of the schools exiting Additional Targeted Support or Improvement status was Luther Burbank School. The points-based proficiency score for students with disabilities there rose from 7.2 in 2023-24 to 9.0 in 2024-25 in English language arts, and from 10.8 to 13.1 in math, according to the Department of Public Instruction’s latest Every Student Succeeds Act accountability report.
This is a developing story. NNS is currently seeking out state progress to exit reports, which may provide a more updated look at proficiency data.
3. 2025-26 seclusion and restraint data is here
The MPS Board of Directors have released seclusion and restraint data for the 2025-26 school year.
Seclusion incidents are up from the 2024-25 school year and restraints are down, Cassellius said.
Seclusion incidents rose from 30 to 45 last school year, while restraint incidents fell from 345 to 319.
Students with disabilities were eight times more likely to be secluded and about five times as likely to be restrained compared to their peers without identified disabilities.
Joanne Juhnke, an advocacy specialist with Disability Rights Wisconsin, said seclusion and restraint has historically disproportionately affected students with disabilities.
Learning emotional-regulation skills can create a learning curve for students with disabilities, Juhnke said, which puts them more at risk for acting out.
“It feels much more damaging and much more punitive,” Juhnke said. “From what we hear from students with disabilities themselves who have been subjected to this, it feels like punishment.”
As of 2020, Wisconsin law prohibits seclusion or physical restraint by school staff unless a student’s behavior presents an imminent risk to the physical safety of students or school staff.
Disability Rights Wisconsin doesn’t advocate for the complete ban of restraint because it recognizes that it is sometimes necessary for a child’s safety, but it believes seclusion should be banned entirely, Juhnke said.
4. Board honors five MPS high school students who passed away
Amongst several current and retired staff, the school board had a moment of silence for five MPS high schoolers who have died.
One Bay View High School student, Camron Bowen was shot and killed on West Layton Boulevard and West Greenfield on Sept. 19, just three days after his 16th birthday.
His mother, Jennifer Cassidy told Fox 6 that Bowen loved anime and wanted to go to college to study technology.
The family is accepting donations to help lay Bowen to rest. A 15-year-old classmate of Bowen has been charged in his death and is being sought by police.
18-year-old Pulaski High School student Antwon Mooney passed away earlier this week. He lit up the whole room, Pulaski paraprofessional Mozella Knox wrote on Mooney’s obituary page.
“Antwon was our golden child at Pulaski high school,” Knox said. “He was the light of the school every time he walked into a classroom or even came in the building.”
Alex Klaus is the education solutions reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
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