The St. Francis Public School District won the Green Luminary Award from the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District changing its grounds into green-friendly landscaping.
The project added native plants, rain gardens and bioswales. All told, the three schools can now manage more than 280,000 gallons of water when it rains, keeping runoff out of Lake Michigan. Previously, stormwater ran across the school parking lots, the schoolyard and city streets, but in freezing temperatures, the iced-over pavement could be hazardous.
“We like to manage the water where it falls because that helps us control polluted runoff and lessens the likelihood of sewer overflows,” says Chris Schultz, senior project planner for MMSD. The district’s Jones Island and South Shore water reclamation facilities clean some 600 mgd for 28 municipalities with a total population of 1.1 million.
Going native
Through its Green Schools Program, launched in 2016, the district partners with schools to transform their landscapes. In St. Francis, MMSD worked with the school district and Greenprint Partners, a consulting firm with an office in Madison, Wisconsin’s capital. The project started in 2021 and completed in 2024.
In addition to native landscaping, the work includes a walking trail where students can learn about the native plants, and about turtles, ducks, frogs and butterflies that have started showing up since the transformation. A small outdoor classroom for the elementary school is located on the premises.
“The native plants have many environmental benefits, including that they are drought resistant,” Schultz says. “They still have to be managed and will get overgrown as the years go on.” To that end, the school district hires a contractor to keep the plantings in check.
Chris Osowski, the school district’s director of facilities and grounds, says the outdoor classroom has evolved into an area used during and after school. It is now used every month year-round, and students and neighbors have raved about it.
“These mini ecosystems that include the rain gardens and native plants are great opportunities to maximize the effectiveness of the outdoor classroom while minimizing the demand on the sewer system,” Osowski observes.
Green Luminaries
The St. Francis district is a recipient of MMSD’s Green Luminary Award, created in 2017 by Kevin Shafer, executive director. To date, 65 such awards have been given. “The award recognizes noteworthy projects or organizations that protect the environment and manage water where it falls,” Schultz says.
He’s pleased to have the St. Francis schools as a showcase for other school districts and as a demonstration of MMSD’s Green Schools Program. The district has been helping to transform five Milwaukee Public Schools per year and is willing to assist private and suburban schools, as well.
Osowski observes that the schoolyard habitat outside the library at Willow Glen Primary School is used daily by young families after school hours. On some days, four to five families meet near the bridge and pond: “Frequently there are neighbors walking their dog, flying a kite or just making their way from one part of the neighborhood to another on one of the trails.”