In December the MPS board voted to close the 68th Street School building at 68th and Moltke, but to give administration more time to come up with ideas to preserve the program that currently inhabits the building. You can read about the discussion and action to close 68th Street School here.
The neighborhood associations of Enderis Park, Enderis East, Lenox Heights and Cooper Park support merging 68th with nearby 81st Street School (pictured above), at 81st and Chambers.
As 2011 faded, 68th Street School teacher Gina Sabatinelli, who lives in the schools' neighborhood, posted information on Facebook about a meeting to be held on Monday regarding the future of 68th Street School.
"As you may have heard, the 68th Street building is closing at the end of this school year, however, our program is remaining intact. It is our vision to make 81st Street a true neighborhood school. This would invoke many changes to that school. We are coming up with several proposals for our program, but 81st is our focus. Administration suggests our program move to Sherman (Multicultural Arts School, 51st and Locust)."
The meeting was held at the Enderis Playfield Fieldhouse – located more or less between 68th Street and 81st Street Schools – and an update was posted yesterday.
"We had a great meeting last night regarding the proposal to make 81st Street a K3-5th grade neighborhood program and moving the 68th Street Early Childhood program in there. It was so valuable to have Mary Reynolds at our meeting last night. Her viewpoint as a community member was and is so important for us in developing this proposal and getting the board to view how our neighborhood needs a true neighborhood school right now."
Another meeting on the future of the schools is slated for Monday, Jan. 9 at 4:30 p.m. at the Enderis Playfield Fieldhouse near 72nd Street and Locust Streets. All are invited to attend.
UPDATE: As of Thursday, Jan. 5, the Cooper Park neighborhood group said it had collected more than 100 signatures in support of its plan and will collect more at an Enderis Park event this weekend.
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.
