The brightly colored walls of La Escuela Fratney Elementary School in Milwaukee used to reverberate the sounds of laughter and chatter as students painted their masterpieces and crafted pottery.
Today the art room echoes nothing but silence as it has stood nearly vacant all school year. In a year of budget cuts, La Escuela Fratney had to let go of its art teacher for the 2012-’13 school year, and with her, what MPS parent Jasmine Alindar describes as the “soul of the school.”
“She was and still is a very beloved member of the school community,” Alindar said. “So it was a really hard blow.”
Alindar, whose fifth-grade daughter, Alice, has attended La Escuela Fratney since first grade, said the elementary school also lacks specialized music and physical education teachers and has never offered courses in these subjects while her daughter has been enrolled.
La Escuela Fratney isn’t alone in Milwaukee Public Schools. Eighty-seven of 175 schools – many of them elementary schools – no longer have specialized teachers for art, music or physical education.
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