School of Trades Closing; Montessori School Adding Sixth Grade

The Wauwatosa School Board voted Monday night to expand one of its charter schools and close another, at least for now.

The Wauwatosa Montessori School, housed at the Fisher Building, 12121 W. North Ave. and offering 4-year-old kindergarten through fifth grades, will offer a sixth-grade level beginning in the fall.

But the , a high school-level charter school also at Fisher, will have its charter terminated because there is not enough enrollment.

The trades school was started to address the need for some students who are not college-bound to learn workplace skills such as welding. The school was never intended to be large, but it has in fact shrunk by almost half.

Maximum enrollment at Trades was 22, said William Anderson, supervisor of student learning, but that was down to 17 at the beginning of this year and has fallen to 13 now.

That level "was insufficient enrollment to sustain a school," Anderson said.

"I'm disappointed and sorry that it didn't work out," said board member Mary Jo Randall. "I know there were earnest attempts to recruit students.

Said board president Lois Weber, "I think we've learned something from this. The young people really did not like being separated from their peers. Perhaps a different location would work out better."

Leaving the door open for the possibility of reinstating the charter, Ertl said that the district would look at "a different way of doing things."

Montessori 6th grade could be class of one

By contrast, the Montessori elementary school has become very popular in its first year, and the has accelerated plans to expand it to higher grades, possibly through eighth grade.

For now, the addition of even a sixth-grade level sounds like a bit of a stretch — there are only two fifth-grade students to advance into the higher grade in fall, and no guarantee they will go.

According to Montessori Administrator Dean Heus, those two families have already started looking at other options because the School Board was only now considering a sixth-grade advancement for them.

New families could be recruited, Heus said, but it might be a difficult sell to offer them just one year of Montessori schooling before turning them back into middle school at the seventh-grade level.

The real targets, Heus said, are the class of 10 fourth-graders and the ever-larger classes following that. Parents in those grades, he said, will appreciate knowing there is an established sixth-grade level to come.

Randall was a bit troubled that the plan to start sixth grade now puts Wauwatosa Montessori two steps out of step with "the true Montessori model."

"What's the benefit of doing this now instead of this time next year?" she asked.

Ultimately, the goal is to bring the school into compliance with the "Montessori model," which has grades 1 through 3 and grades 4 through 6 combined, Heus said.

Right now, grades 1 and 2 are combined as are 3 through 5. The proposal on the table will put kids all the way from third through sixth grade together.

That should only be true for a year, Heus said. Initial enrollment showed that parents of the youngest children were most interested in starting Montessori, with few wanting to alter their older children's form of education.

"For now, we have to stay in a holding pattern," Heus said, until the larger, younger grades start to "roll up into the higher ones."

"I am confident we will have at least one sixth-grader," Heus said. "I can say that."

Heus said that there were virtually no costs associated with instituting a sixth-grade level for only one or two students, since it will simply be added to the upper level classroom with the same teacher. There is no additional staff time involved at school, he said.