MPS superintendent to deliver 'State of our Schools address' Thursday

And our big story this morning, Milwaukee Public School Superintendent Brenda Casillas is set to deliver the state of our school's address. Casillas is expected to highlight what's working, the district's priorities, and what comes next. Our Stephanie Quirk joins us live downtown where the event will happen later this morning. Steph, I know this will take place at Discovery World, but what can you tell us as we look ahead to this major vision for the future? Hey, good morning, Derica Donovan. Yes, the superintendent is actually set to address the public or deliver the state of the school address at this morning at 830 with set up for media starting just an hour before them. So it's really a chance for the superintendent to lay out the plans already in place, the progress in place. And to just talk about what's working, but also what isn't and how they plan to fix it. We know the district does have some challenges, but it's also made a lot of progress. Just to talk a little bit about what's riding on the future here, the Some positive signs. First, the latest state test scores show improvement in reading, math, science, and social studies among students in grades three through eight. We know reading has been a particular focus for Casillas, who's been pushing this new literacy strategy and curriculum across the district, that is. But there are still some challenges, really the big ones, starting with enrollment, too. As we know, declining enrollment has been an issue and a topic that the superintendent has discussed. Over the years now, that's also ties into another big issue, the future of the school buildings. The district has more than 100 buildings and many of them are aging, underutilized, in need of significant maintenance. And now MPS is also looking at this long-term facilities plan that could include renovations, new construction, mergers and potential school closures. Now, there hasn't been official plans for that specifically, but... The superintendent of course couldn't address that today. There are a lot of questions and a lot riding on this state of the school address. Of course, we're going to be hearing a lot about what's happening now, but also what's happening in the future. So we will be covering that at 8:30 again this morning. Back to you. Okay.