Dear MPS Parents and Families:

Providing a world-class education in Milwaukee Public Schools is a shared responsibility.

Before your children started on their academic path in MPS, they were learning from you, their parents and families. You were their first role models, who offered support and encouragement as they were familiarizing themselves with the world around them. Now that your children are learning with us too, we understand it is our role to provide your children with the optimum learning environment.

When students are in school, they are learning critical thinking skills and reading comprehension. In addition to instruction from our educators, dedicated volunteers and support staff assist students in a variety of ways to help them with their assignments.

Parent coordinators are a new resource this year at all of our school buildings because we are making every effort to get parents more engaged. They work to provide parents with the resources they need to help their children reach their academic goals. MPS recognizes as more parents become involved in the learning process, it creates a positive impact on their children, who in turn perform better in school.

We want to thank you, our families, for entrusting your children's education to us, and believing that MPS is the place for students to Start, Stay and Succeed. Thank you for being there to help your children at home and for helping them work through homework hurdles.

Happy Holidays!

Darienne B. Driver, Ed.D.

Superintendent of Schools

Victory School for the Gifted and Talented and Italian Immersion welcomed a special guest, Claudio Bisogniero, Italy's ambassador to the United States.

Claudio Bisogniero, Italy's ambassador to the U.S., speaks with staff at Victory School for the Gifted and Talented and Italian Immersion.

Bisogniero visited and spoke with students, families and staff at the school, home to what is believed to be one of the first Italian Immersion programs in the country.

Students at Victory from 4-year-old Kindergarten through 6th grade, learn some of their core subjects in Italian, helping students become bilingual. In addition to Victory's partial Italian Immersion program, Milwaukee Public Schools has full kindergarten-through-12th-grade immersion programs in French, German and Spanish as well as partial immersion programs in Spanish and instruction in Mandarin Chinese.

Victory hired five new Italian teachers this year, four of whom are from Italy, to help bolster the program with the goal of extending it into 7th and 8th grade. Read more.

Gail Milbrath with Green Bay Packers President and CEO Mark Murphy at an event at Greenfield.

top physical education teacher is Milwaukee Public Schools' own Gail Milbrath. The honor bestowed by SHAPE America (Society of Health and Physical Educators) also qualifies her for the organization's national PE educator of the year. Milbrath, who teaches at Greenfield Bilingual School, also was recognized as the state's top PE teacher during the recent Wisconsin Health and Physical Education (WHPE) convention.

Milbrath, a third-generation MPS graduate, was drawn to teaching because she wanted to give back to the community and provide as many resources as possible to students.

Milbrath's selection as physical education teacher of the year by WHPE marked the second straight year an MPS teacher received the group's top honor. Read more. 

Bucks rookie forward Jabari Parker with Erick Owens, Neeskara principal.

Students at Neeskara Elementary School learned from Bucks rookie forward Jabari Parker that it's never too early to develop healthy habits.

Parker spent time with Neeskara students to discuss the importance of eating healthy, staying active and why it is important to be physically fit.

Students also learned some basketball pointers from Parker. The young NBA star ran some drills with students. 

Neeskara Elementary School is a traditional elementary school, serving K4 through 5th grade students in Milwaukee's Washington Heights neighborhood. Read more. 

This rendering shows how the renovated Malcolm X site will appear.

Milwaukee Public Schools will open a high-performing school at the Malcolm X site in fall 2016. The site will be the home for the Rufus King International Middle School, which offers the rigorous college preparatory International Baccalaureate programming now available at Rufus King and Ronald Reagan high schools.

The Malcom X facility will undergo extensive renovation and redesign. Among the school's upgraded amenities include, full-size gym, large auditorium and additional opportunities for art and music.

King's existing site is in McNair, a former elementary school building. The new site also will create a true feeder pattern from King Middle to King High, ranked among the state's best high schools by U.S. News and World Report. Read more.