Milwaukee Lincoln Avenue School fire; community meeting

I wanted to speak first up to anyone in the audience if you don't mind taking a short break. Welcome, everybody. I wanted to first add that this has been a really difficult time and the water. I think that every community, really all over the world, has got their spirit engaged, and they're sharing memories, and the community has really rallied together. What I wanted to first start out with is wanting to say thank you to our biofinance students. We have a lot of people who we get them from. It's safe, it's clean, no one is injured. We are just so grateful that no one is injured during this. Obviously, we don't ever want to lose a building or have damage to our community, but we couldn't have prevented it. I also want to give a really big gratitude to my team. First and foremost, Mr. Harris, who is our interim deputy of operations. They just want to show up. Then I just wanted to say that we've been spending the past couple of weeks with the principal. There she is over there. She'll show up for it. Anyway, it's here. Then you can offer in support. That was the second thing they told us. Many of our families have been displaced. That got my team really busy, and all of those just didn't know how serendipitous was that and created some space at the high school. We're here to hear your views on how they raised the bill, and we're ready to take it down. In the process of that, they made a decision to raise it. But they're thinking about what would they have as answers just yet about what would be working with the community. As you know, there's a plan. With that, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to President Zonborn for the school directors. I want to start by thanking the Lincoln Avenue School community for their strength and resilience that you've shown for this program. Losing Lincoln Avenue School, a building that serves the neighborhood for over 100 years, and we know how much it means to students and families and staff who call it home, but we also need the schools and students and educators and staff that students go to for learning and laughter and joy, and those things can't be taken away by a fire. The heart of Lincoln Avenue, and that will continue whatever learning takes. So I'm here to let you know that the board is here to help in this process and fully supports the district's plan to keep the school community together in the location for the coming school year. As decisions about rebuilding and next steps move forward, we will support school and college. So thank you for all you've done today, and I'll turn it over to Michael Harris to talk a little bit about the plan. Thank you. So good morning everyone, Deputy Superintendent of Operations. So, just to provide an update on what we know right now, what we know today. We have not learned the reason or the cause of the fire at this time, that information has not been released, and as we've stated in our other meetings with staff and families, we will definitely keep all of you updated once that information becomes available to us. As Superintendent Caselius stated, the decision was made by the city of Milwaukee to tear down the building, so that will be starting shortly. Again, they will be providing us that information. Again, Superintendent Caselius is staying in contact with the mayor of the city, and as that information is known, we will definitely make sure that we share that information with you at this time. I would like to now turn it over to Principal Ayala to give you some additional information about how we've been engaging the community. Good morning everyone, good morning. So again, I am the proud, I do want to say thank you to, and a big hug to, and also, I want to say hello to the kids that are here, and the staff and parents, because that is, that gives me hope, because I know that you'll be there to learn those things. Right away, we were able to invite teachers, two parents, our parent coordinator, myself, and the boys and girls from United Way who was there in April. These are our partners, so they were right away. We were presented by options that we care for South Riverside Street. We were not able to fit, and that was a matter with something. The entire school, again, we wanted to help the school, is not being here, and we know that the new parents are, we would say, blockers, so we knew that was also going to feel and you'll be proud of that, and these are the reasons we thought that we can stay together. Two, it's one mile away, and like I said, our students are blockers. Three, the physical space has the ability to have our one-on-one services on one side, and our elementary kids on the other side. With that middle space, our schedules will stay the same for Lincoln Avenue. We start at 7 o'clock, and I told you it's 7 o'clock, so that looks perfect for us. We'll come in first, and then number five, we have big spaces, green spaces without Lincoln Avenue. We know what to do with those spaces, so I'm sure once we get in there, we're going to get to it. As you can see, this is one of the entrances that is available for our students, but this would be an example of one of the entrances. I feel like I'm not sure. And then on that side, you'll see staircases. Lincoln Avenue, our kiddos, the older one, have to go up the stairs anyways, so it's no big difference. It is the staircases for the older kiddos. Here's an example of the two types of rooms that may be available for us. As you can see to your left, it looks just like Lincoln Avenue, with all the shiny things in there, or soft pictures. And then on the right, you see the tile one. I would have to say, I'm thinking it's modern, but it's also much more modern. High ceilings, big windows, all those are just... When we were discussing, we also saw some concerns, again, about the Pulaski High School kiddos really being on one side and really on the other side, because they're real. The real kids are small, and I could just see, this is where my parents would want our conversation to take place. And it just so happens that it's on the other side. Two, another concern that we talked through was that the playground, we have small kids, re-envisioning, and we worked really hard with reflow and playground renovations to have cut rocks, soccer fields, all this. So we're gonna work really hard to make sure these things are there. There's athletic fields at Pulaski, so there's some conversation that we will have on that. Number three, can you deliver Parkway, the street behind Oklahoma? For us, would fit us the best, but Oklahoma itself is very busy. I don't want my three-year-old and their mom trying to cross the street. So that conversation was held really quickly that we wanted our families and the community to bring them back. And then number four, Pulaski has a lot of back-to-school activities so we have to respect their style, their culture, and at the same time, make sure that our CLC after-school program is thriving and doing well because I know our parents need that after-school support. Thank you, Principal Ayala. So we know that we created a frequently asked questionnaire that we have posted on the Lincoln Avenue website. Please feel free to go there to get any updates. As those questions come in, we are doing our best to respond. And so we just wanted to just kind of clear the air about a few things. Transportation. We know that's a big one. Right now, if you are provided transportation at the 18th location, you can expect to have transportation to Pulaski. We will make sure that you have what you need as a school community to be successful in a different location. That's our commitment to you. If you have any specific concerns, we do have our administrative assistants here today from the school. Just make sure you reach out to them and they're here to help out if you have any questions or concerns regarding that. And then we know that when we met with our families last week, questions came up and families really wanted to make sure that we were able to confirm your child's seat at Lincoln Avenue. And I'm happy to say today our student services, if you could wave your hands over there, they are here to provide you that evidence that your child is enrolled at Lincoln Avenue for the 26-27 school year. So we want to make sure that you have the confidence in our school district, in the staff working at the school, that we are taking every precaution to make sure you have the information that you need in order to feel confident about this upcoming school year. Because as you know, changing a building, it causes a different level of stress and we want to recognize that. But we also want to make sure that you know that we are here as part of the community to ensure you have what you need for a successful start to the school year. Folks were also asking, hey, I have cousins or a nephew or a niece that wants to also enroll at Lincoln Avenue. Can they still enroll? Absolutely. We have seats available. Again, student services is here today. Make sure you just stop by to share any information that you need or have and we'll make sure we reach out to those families as well. Members of the community also asked about, is the phone number still the same at the school? The phone number is the same. It's being rerouted to student services at our district office. So you just want to make sure if you have questions, reach out. We know that there's been a little talk of our competitors in the neighborhood. Look, we want you at Lincoln Avenue for next year. If you have questions, please make sure you reach out to us. Let's have that conversation about your concerns, right? What's out there that you just really need an answer to? We will make ourselves available and as the superintendent stated earlier, we will be hosting additional meetings so that we can share updates and of course answer any of your questions. One of the pieces here, we will be hosting a back to school open house for families so you can get into the school, see the new spaces. But again, a lot of work is happening right now. We really wanted to make sure that we met with the families, we met with the staff to see if you were in support of the recommendation from the SEC to relocate to Pulaski. Now that we have that confirmation, our team, our facilities team, is hard at work and now we're going around really trying to make sure that we map out the building so when you come to open house, you can actually see the learning environment that your child will be engaging in. Again, as I stated, we will continue to provide regular updates by email and text messages and let me just plug this because I know a lot of our families asked about this on our call last week. If you need to sign up for the Parent Portal, we have staff here that can assist you with that right today and we would love to get you set up so that you have access to all of your student records information. So that Parent Portal really is your gold ticket to see any of the materials, report cards, interim reports. So anything like that, please make sure to stop by our student services so we can assist you with that. And with that, I will go into the community supports. So many of you and we're so thankful and grateful for the outpouring support and care that our surrounding community as well as the Lincoln community. I had a chance to talk to one of the alumni the other day. I believe he's here and of course I'm getting a little bit older so names don't come as fast anymore but it was a great conversation and so many people want to step up and help. And so we do have, we are working with the NPS Foundation who are collecting monetary donations and that's the source that we want to focus on at this time. This will support our teachers making sure they have what they need when they come back to the school to make sure that they create a learning environment that is conducive to teaching and learning. And so all of the monetary donations are going directly to the school, the SEC, the School Engagement Council along with the principal will determine how those funds should be used and how best to use those funds to support the staff and students of the school. And then of course we are collecting school supplies and that's being held at the district office Monday through Friday from 830 till 430. So we've had an influx of folks visiting the district office last week dropping off Chromebooks and all types of things. So if folks are asking how can they help please direct them to the foundation webpage. That would be very helpful for us and if they have items that they want to drop off dropping them off at the district office would be more than appreciated. And with that we'll open up for any questions that you may have but thank you so much especially to our students and our families that are here. We appreciate you. We see you. Definitely. So thank you. And we'll open up for any questions and we do have a mic so if you have a burning question that you would like to ask we will get the microphone. Our hope is that we're being thorough we're being very transparent so you know where we are at this moment. Thank you for that. The superintendent also wanted me to remind you suggestions. We are in this work together. We want to create the best learning environment and teaching environment for all and so if you have suggestions we are open to those suggestions as well as answering any burning questions that you may have. But if it's possible we'll try to make that happen. I believe that we have that group and I believe it's going to go into but yes we are going to so it's going to be a lab essentially That's part of the process of where we dealt with the crisis and we dealt with the relocation and the rebuilding of the community and bringing the community back together in some of these small pieces and we'll be big steps forward in making that happen. I have a question. How are you able to quickly when you have a question answer the question? I know you have been speaking to the raising hand and I know that those are a lot and so the easiest way to answer the question is to say if you're a person with a disability what about a walker? Great question. And we have some more questions. Thank you for that question regarding transportation. When we met with the family if they had walkers we just want to know who they are so if you can take their information and we will work with them. We just want to make sure we're very clear about that. We're going to make sure students get the information. Great idea. So we've got that brought down. I want to also make sure that when you file when you look at it that it's not in the housing. So we need to work with the city on that but we anticipate within the next couple of weeks once it goes down we'll know how much that student gave us back for the building and that sort of thing. Obviously that depends on the cause and all the other pieces and so we're waiting on a few other really technical pieces with the city and with their insurance and so as soon as we know what that is we'll come back to the city with that information and then talk about what are the hopes for that site and what are the views of the Milwaukee Public Schools Currently we're working with our MTS Foundation. I'm sure there will be something more organized around support and so we're thankful to our Milwaukee teachers particularly for looking out for although they don't need to go through all that teachers are working with MTEA which is our teachers union and what they need so as soon as we have all of that gathered so that's the biggest thing about the Milwaukee Public Schools I don't use CHOP anymore very often but yes keep track of the website and watch the meeting for the meeting especially as we start to get into the future and the future planning because we really do value your voice so thank you to everybody for coming and I want to thank everyone for being here today and the incredible hard work of the teachers and the community Thank you.