Brenda Cassellius

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Photo courtesy of Milwaukee Public Schools

Dr. Brenda Casselliius

Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Brenda Cassellius

Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) has seen headlines during the past year regarding missed deadlines for state aid and a lack of transparency. Result? A crisis of confidence, with the state withholding funding, the resignation of the superintendent and other top managers, and calls for restructuring. 

A recent operational audit, ordered by Governor Tony Evers, stated that “financial mismanagement, lack of honesty and transparency, and ineffective public communications have contributed to a lack of public trust.”

The school board is helping correct the narrative by hiring a new superintendent of schools. Enter Dr. Brenda Cassellius, who began responsibilities in March 2025. I met with her in her office to discuss her plans.

A small woman with big persona—her father is African American, her mother Lebanese—I found Cassellius serious, sincere and driven, and determined to shrink the MPS bureaucracy and provide buoyant learning opportunities for MPS children, most of whom are people of color.

I am interested in your background. Where you grew up, your parents, neighborhoods, schools?

I had a single mother, but my dad was always with us. I grew up in public housing in Minneapolis. My mom worked, and she had a flower shop, but she was also on welfare and food stamps. I lived in a good neighborhood. There was a park. I could walk to the public school. I went to two different public high schools. 

Take me through your higher education and career path and how you ended up here in Milwaukee as the MPS superintendent.

I had scholarship to Gustavus Adolphus College in St Peter, Minn., but I was followed by some boys who hurled racial slurs at me, so I quit, and transferred to the University of Minnesota. I majored in psychology. I had a son when I was 21. After college, I worked in jobs helping neglected and special education students, but I went to school at night to earn my master’s degree. Then, I worked in various teaching jobs, but I also studied to earn my administrative license. I was always interested in leadership. I became an assistant principal for nine years in Minneapolis Public Schools. Eventually, I moved to Memphis, Tenn. as a middle school principal. I was later put in charge of 31 middle schools. Big job but a great job and a great team of people.

And how did you end up in Boston as the Boston Public Schools Superintendent?

After Memphis, I moved back to Minneapolis as the high school superintendent for three years. In 2010, I became the Minnesota State Commissioner of Education and stayed in that position for eight years. In 2018, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh hired me as the Superintendent of Boston Public Schools. But Marty eventually left to become secretary of labor for Joe Biden. The new Boston mayor wanted her own team, so I came back to Minneapolis and became CEO of Fresh Energy, which worked on climate change. But education pulled me back in when Milwaukee Public Schools hired me.

MPS missed financial reporting deadlines last year. This led to a state-level corrective action plan and the withholding of approximately $17 million in state aid for special education. Yet MPS missed the May 16 reporting deadline but still hopes to submit the financial report. Can MPS still receive the $17 million payment from the state?

Yes, I think the state intends to give MPS those reimbursements because it doesn’t want to hold back aid for children with disabilities. But I am uncertain about when we will meet the deadline. Yet, we have fiscal responsibilities to the state to have our books correct. We have been working hard to correct many different past accounts. We are a $1.5 billion organization.  

I read that you moved the district's finance staff into your office suite. You said, and I quote, “I had to take it under my leadership to make sure this was getting done and getting done right.” Whose leadership had the finance staff been under previously?

The chief Ffnancial officer had been in charge of the finance department under the previous superintendent Keith Posley, who was held accountable and resigned. The previous CFO and the comptroller are also no longer in their positions. I have a new CFO, Aycha Sara, and a new interim comptroller, Kim Kelly, who are working together to identify and correct the problems of the past. 

I understand that you are cutting central office jobs in order to reduce positions at the central office and that some teachers will need to reapply for their jobs in an effort to fill job vacancies in schools. How many jobs have been cut and who is affected?

We will be cutting 141 central office positions, and an additional 42 will return to the classroom. Of the 141 positions cut, some may end up in the classrooms, but some will not.

I recently read this: “Most of the administrative employees that were ‘cut’ were actually promoted to newly created positions and given a 2% raise.” Is that true?

Not all of them have been promoted, but everyone in the MPS district is getting a 2.95% increase in pay, authorized by the school board. But I will say that anyone who will be cut will not lose their job and get a one-year salary. We will be using seniority as to who will be hired in a teacher or office position. 

Not sure if I have this right, but I read that you plan to create eight new superintendents whose constituents are placed throughout the district. These eight will report to the newly created chief schools officer. Is that true?

There is a position called the chief administrative officer who is responsible for 156 schools including five regional superintendents and four instructional leadership people. That is an overwhelming responsibility. I took the chief administrative officer position and divided it into two separate assignments—chief of schools and chief of operations. Under chief of schools , I have six supervisory elementary positions and two high school positions. I want our school principals to be more focused on instruction in the classroom and on parents. The Ccef of operations oversees information technology, facilities, transportation and food.

You have mentioned the concept of school-based teams in teaching. What are school-based teams?

Right now, we have the MPS central office delivering professional development for teachers to get literacy training. What I want to do is kind of go back to the department chair concept. For instance, the English department teachers work together as a team. I want to shift things more toward the school-based level and away from the central office.

What is “Backward Mapping”? I read this definition: “A teaching approach that focuses on starting with the desired learning outcomes and working backward to create lessons and assessments that support those outcomes.” Private corporations have been using this method for many years.

The state creates standards that include what children need to know, and then we in school districts work backward in each of the content areas to meet the grade level children have to master to achieve those standards. Then, we scope and sequence a clear map for the entire year on what type of teaching methods and materials will achieve those results.

For many years, the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association (MTEA) has been very powerful. The statistical results of their teaching methods are not good. What are your plans for working with the MTEA?

META plays a huge role in representing their teachers. We work closely with their leaders on their suggestions and in strategic planning. I want them to co-create ownership on the agenda moving forward. I meet with them regularly, currently twice a week. We have them involved in interview groups and strategic planning. They are a part of the ownership agenda moving forward. If they contribute to the plan, it is more likely the plan will be implemented with fidelity across all of our schools.  

The MPS teacher, Angela Harris, has been an activist for better MPS schools. She is the chair of the Black Educators Caucus. To quote her, “Systemic change demands a complete overhaul of how we support students and staff?” Have you met with Ms. Harris to discuss this matter? 

I did once but it was at a board meeting. I have not met with her personally. But I have read her opinion pieces in the paper.

Do you plan to meet with her?

I will meet with anybody, and so yes, I will meet with Angela. She represents a constituency that is important.

What do you see in the near future for MPS?

There are some hard decisions ahead of us. Next year, MPS will have $100 million deficit. But if 500 job vacancies do not get filled, we can bank that money. In other words, if we don’t need those positions, we don’t create those positions.

For school year 2024-25, the total MPS student enrollment is 66,377 across 156 schools, a 42% decline since 1997. Ninety% are students of color, 84% economically disadvantaged, 20% have special needs, and 13% are English learners. That is a big educational challenge. 

That is why I am here on this job. My life purpose is to work with the most vulnerable students who have limited access to opportunity. I want them to have the same opportunity as I did as a child so that more of them can get out of poverty.