MILWAUKEE — North Division High School senior Dontae Luttrell said that sometimes, his school gets a 'bad rap.’ 

What You Need To Know

  • The MPS Foundation is involved in a multimillion dollar project to transform schoolyards

  •  The goal is to reduce concrete areas and increase green space

  • Five schools, including North Division High School, completed projects over the summer

“We get talked down a lot bad [sic], and we have a lot of bad things talked about us,” Luttrell said.

He and the school wanted to change that perception. 

Over the summer, he interned with Reflo, one of the organizations involved in a multimillion dollar project transforming schoolyards at schools across the city of Milwaukee — working to reduce pavement and improve green spaces. 

"This space, like many of our other schoolyards are really asphalt jungles,” said Wendell Willis, Executive Director of the Milwaukee Public Schools Foundation. "And what, not only us but our partners, came in and really remediated everything from below the ground, making sure that it’s environmentally sustainable, making sure it can continue to flourish for years to come."

There were a few big projects that happened at North Division over the summer, which Luttrell helps complete, to make areas more welcoming to students. 

One was to make an outdoor class area in a former courtyard.

“We had no seating. It was grass, but it wasn’t, it didn’t look professional,” Luttrell said. 

They also built an amphitheater area that can be used for all sorts of activities.

“It could be used for an outdoor classroom, an amphitheater, you could put a projector on the wall,” Luttrell said.

They also replaced and improved the former concrete track.

“You know how when you fall and you hit your feet on the concrete and you get that vibration in your feet? It’s basically to prevent that,” Luttrell said of the new surface. "So when you’re running you don’t feel that in your feet. You feel like you’re running on air, basically.”

The project also helped solve a flooding issue North Division’s campus often dealt with.

Luttrell helped install a cistern under the ground to help store rain water. That helps prevent basement backups and sewer overflows in the community.

“It’s a good thing to have a school that actually cares about their community, too,” Luttrell said. "It’s just different."

He hopes by the school caring for the community, the project will help change people’s mindsets about the school he cares so much for, too.