Meetings Re MPS proposal—Morse Middle School expansion and move to Marshall HS campus

Source: Milwaukee Public Schools: Roseann St. Aubin, MPS Communications Director

Gifted and Talented school expands, relocates

MPS’ Samuel Morse Middle School for the Gifted and Talented will be reconfigured - to a combined middle and high school, featuring grades 6 through 12.

Morse has been a middle school located at 4601 N. 84th Street since 1983 after the program relocated from Rufus King High School. Its current enrollment is 983 students. The Milwaukee Board of School Directors approved the grade expansion last year, but had directed the Administration to come back with a full implementation plan and a recommendation for a new location for Morse, which will outgrow its current building once more grades are added.

The Administration is preparing a Morse relocation proposal for the chair of the Milwaukee Board of School Directors’ Committee on Innovation/School Reform to consider for scheduling on the February 10 meeting agenda. The proposal outlines the implementation plan and a new location for what is currently being referred to as the Samuel Morse School for the Gifted and Talented. Two community meetings are scheduled in early February. Members of the public are invited to come to learn more about the proposal.

Community meetings

Tuesday, February 3, 6:00 p.m.

Location: Morse Middle School, 4601 N. 84th Street, in the library.

Please use N. 84th Street entrance.

Thursday, February 5, 6:00 p.m.

Location: Marshall High School Campus, 4141 N. 64th Street, in the library. Please use N. 64th Street entrance.

The Board had directed the MPS Administration to consider locating the new Morse School in the building that had housed Webster Middle School, which closed in 2006. The Administration will not recommend the Webster facility as a site for Morse

due to the amount of remodeling required to make the Webster building functional for 1400 students in grades 6-12.

Instead, the Administration will recommend that the expanded Morse move into the Marshall High School Campus at 4141 N. 64th Street in time for the start of the 2010-2011 school year. Marshall currently houses three small high schools, a program serving students with special needs, and the district’s professional offices along with the offices of MTEC, the Milwaukee Teacher Education Center. One of the small high schools, MAAST, is proposed for closure at the end of the current school year, and another, Marshall Montessori High School, will move to the Juneau facility. “These two anticipated actions have made the Marshall High School Campus the appropriate location for the Samuel Morse School for the Gifted and Talented,” said MPS Superintendent William Andrekopoulos. “This is what we will recommend to the Board in February in an effort to increase the high quality options for our families on the north side.”

The proposed move of Morse to the Marshall campus will mean it will be necessary to relocate W.E.B Du Bois High School from the Marshall Campus to a location elsewhere in the district for the 2010-2011 school year. The Administration will devote further study to an appropriate location for Du Bois, which currently enrolls 319 students. The Morse program would merge with the special education program that is currently housed at the Marshall complex.

Starting in the fall of 2009, it is proposed that Samuel Morse School for the Gifted and Talented add a grade level each year, until it has a full offering of grades 6-12 in the fall of 2012, when enrollment is anticipated to reach 1400 students.

For additional information, contact Roseann St. Aubin, MPS Communications Director, at (414) 475-8237.