After MPS' Maryland Avenue Montessori School on Milwaukee's East Side began a massive push to replace much of its asphalt-covered schoolyard with greenspace and stormwater management, I echoed the sentiment that every school deserved a park-like setting.
So, naturally, I was thrilled when a few years later, a collaboration was born between Reflo, Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, the City of Milwaukee, Milwaukee Public Schools, the Fund for Lake Michigan and UWM's Creative Design Solutions.
Together, they kicked off a program to redevelop schoolyards, beginning with two Walker's Point schools – Bradley Tech and Escuela Vieau – in 2018.
Since then 24 schoolyards in five annual cohorts have been made over, all across the city: Burdick, Hawley, Longfellow, Starms, Westside, Vincent, Golda Meir, Anna Doerfler, Clement Avenue, North Division, La Escuela Fratney, Allen-Field, Bay View Montessori, Academy of Accelerated Larning, Zablocki, Neeskara (where they found these cool old playground toys!), Hawthorne, Hayes Bilingual, Franklin, Riley, Mitchell, Kluge, German Immersion and Gaenslen.
While 2025's cohort seven – Humboldt Park, Kagel, Riverwest Elementary, Samuel Clemens and Whitman – are still in the conceptual planning phase, 2024's cohort six has moved on to fundraising and Reflo has shared a series of before and after renderings for these school – Forest Home, Greenfield Bilingual, Lincoln Avenue, Story Elementary and the campus of Milwaukee Sign Language and Morse Middle School.
And they are cool.
The schools apply to take part in the program, which ensures buy-in, cooperation and involvement, which is really great.
The kids get more green space and improved facilities, the neighborhoods get more trees and more attractive schoolyards and the environmental benefits are a win for everyone.
You can make a donation to the program, or to a specific school's greening, at the MPS Foundation website here. Remember to use the pull-down menu and comment section to make sure your donation goes to the desired project.
Here are the before and after photos for the next cohort to get greened! The left side of each photo shows that side of the schoolyard as it currently looks, and the right side shows how that part will look after the transformation.
Greenfield Bilingual School
Forest Home Avenue School
Lincoln Avenue School
Milwaukee Sign Language & Morse Middle Schools
Story School
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
