Families on Milwaukee’s south side have been sending their children to Carmen Schools of Science & Technology for nearly two decades. Now, with a new $55 million facility set to open next year, the local network of public charter schools plans to serve even more families for generations to come while meeting a need for high-quality education in the city.
Carmen Schools, serving more than 1,900 students in Milwaukee across five campuses, plans to unite its south and southeast high schools with its new facility, opening in fall 2026. Carmen broke ground in December on the future south side high school, which will be the network’s first permanent home.
“In a community on the south side that has a growing population and there is a ton of need for high-quality education, I consider it a generational change for the south side of Milwaukee,” said Aaron Lippman, chief executive officer of Carmen Schools. “As long as we keep growing and improving in our offerings and the experiences we provide for kids and families and staff, I think the sky’s the limit.”
Carmen’s south and southeast high school campuses as well as its conjoined middle and high school campus on the city’s north side are all currently co-located with and chartered by Milwaukee Public Schools. Meanwhile, its south side middle school and Stellar Elementary campuses are chartered by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
The new school, to be located at 2005 W. Oklahoma Ave., will span 124,000 square feet with capacity for up to 1,100 students. It’ll provide spaces for innovative learning, labs, arts and athletics, career development opportunities and community gatherings. Lippman said the new school project gives Carmen greater independence and the ability to determine its “own direction in the future.”
The project is being funded through private philanthropy – including support from Milwaukee’s business community – financing, and Carmen’s own reserves, accumulated over the past decade in preparation for a permanent home.
Carmen Schools purchased the 6-acre site for the campus in August for $4.4 million from an Ascension affiliate. Then in October, the MPS board voted to not renew co-location agreements with Carmen High School South, which shares a building with Academia de Lenguaje y Bellas Artes Elementary School at 1712 S. 32nd St., and Carmen High School Southeast, which shares a building with Pulaski High School at 2500 W. Oklahoma Ave.
The co-location agreements are set to expire in June 2026 and there are contingency plans in the event of construction delays for the new school, but the MPS decision “underlined why advancing this project is so important – and urgent,” Lippman said in a news release announcing the December groundbreaking.
“When our south and southeast high schools come together on a campus that we own, our students, families and staff can rest assured that our future is far more secure, permanent and predictable,” Lippman said.
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‘The need for a place like Carmen’
Carmen founder Patricia Hoben started Carmen Schools in 2007, establishing its flagship south high school campus under a charter agreement with MPS. Hoben stepped down from her role as CEO in 2019. At that time, Jennifer Lopez picked up the torch and led Carmen Schools until Lippman took over as CEO in July last year.
Today, the south high school serves about 399 students, 96% of whom are Latino and 90.5% are considered economically disadvantaged, according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s 2023-2024 report card. About 60% of students are English language learners.
The south high school has generally been considered a success story in Milwaukee. On the latest round of report cards released in November, the school received a score of “Exceeds Expectations” from the state Department of Public Instruction.
In 2013, Carmen opened a middle and high school campus on the north side of Milwaukee, located at 5496 N. 72nd St. The school, also chartered by MPS, initially served students in grades six through nine but later expanded to serve students through 12th grade. Known as Carmen Northwest, the campus is Carmen’s only on the north side. According to the 2023-2024 DPI report card, 87.4% of students at the northwest campus are Black, and 97.4% are considered economically disadvantaged. The school “Meets Few Expectations” on DPI’s latest report card.
Carmen opened another school authorized by MPS in 2016 – its southeast high school campus, which will unite with the south high school next year at Carmen’s new facility. According to DPI, Carmen’s southeast high school serves 676 students, of which 92.8% are Latino and 98.1% are considered economically disadvantaged. Similar to the northwest campus, the southeast high school also received a score of “Meets Few Expectations” on the most recent DPI report card.
Under charter agreements with UW-Milwaukee, Carmen founded its south side middle school campus, located at 2433 S. 15th St., in 2018 and Stellar Elementary, located at 2431 S. 10th St., in 2019. The schools predominantly serve Latino students.
Lippman, who was the founding principal of Carmen’s southeast high school campus before leaving to head the Milwaukee Jewish Day School for seven years, first joined Carmen in 2013. At the time, Carmen was expanding with the addition of its north side campus.
“I think that the founding vision of Dr. Hoben and the community of people that saw the need for a place like Carmen was pretty authentic and true and being lived out,” Lippman said. “The opportunity to expand that to a third high school, ultimately another middle and elementary, just meant that more kids, more staff could benefit from that vision.”
Like any school, Carmen has navigated a number of challenges throughout its history. Lippman said that while maintaining strong partnerships with MPS and UW-Milwaukee, it has been difficult to get access to facilities that check all of Carmen’s boxes, such as proximity to Carmen families, air conditioning, before- and after-school building access and robust athletic facilities and science labs.
“It’s just the nature of facility access and what our authorizers can and can’t offer us,” Lippman said.
Carmen has also been working to hire quality leaders and teachers, and Lippman said he thinks Carmen has “done a great job of it.”
“We have to keep doing that and making sure that we’re compensating in a way that allows those phenomenal educators to feel like this is a career they could be in for a long time,” Lippman said.
In 2022, Carmen teachers attempted to unionize in pursuit of higher pay, but employees ultimately voted against the move, according to reporting by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and WUWM.
The world of education has also changed since Lippman first joined Carmen. He thinks there are ways, “mostly tech-related,” for Carmen to continue to evolve to meet students’ needs amid a time of rapid change.
“We know that there are more and more students and families who are interested in ensuring that they’re going to have a family-sustaining career post-high school,” he said. “We want to continue to make sure that all of our graduates have access to college and significant scholarship to reduce cost, and we want to make sure that we’re giving kids a lot more intentional exposure to career pathways to help inform the choices they make after high school.”
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Believing in students
Ivan Gamboa, board chairman of Carmen Schools and senior vice president of Oak Creek-based Tri City National Bank, has been involved with Carmen since its founding. Gamboa said Carmen’s unique approach stems from its “wraparound with our kids.”
That includes providing students with advisors, called transition coordinators, that stick with them after graduation. Carmen has provided this level of advising since its inception, Gamboa said, and the goal is to provide additional support for students navigating college so that they can complete their degree. A 2022 Wisconsin Policy Forum report estimated that only 14.7% of students who graduated from a Milwaukee high school and went on to college successfully earned their degree on time.
Gamboa said Carmen’s “special sauce” is its work to help students get through college and prepare them for their future careers.
“We have to be part of the solution from the beginning,” Gamboa said, from helping students apply for financial aid and scholarships to making sure they’re prepared for the academic rigor of college.
Carmen students have received $28.7 million in scholarships through the years. Lippman called Carmen’s use of advisors who continue to work with students as they go through college “an incredibly powerful tool that I think we’ve done consistently well since our founding.”
Carmen’s connection with students keeps families coming back. America Perez is one of 21 family members who will have graduated from a Carmen school by 2026. Perez, a senior at Carmen South who plans to attend Marquette University in the fall, said she has experienced Carmen’s supportive culture. As a junior preparing for the ACT while still balancing her course load and extracurriculars, Perez struggled with ACT practice. Her Carmen advisor helped her understand that her grades and test scores don’t define her, Perez said.
“I think her as an adult, being able to remind me of that, helped me have a lot of faith in myself, but also faith in my future,” Perez said. “I think that I was putting a lot of weight on my grades and how they were going to determine how the rest of my life would go. And I think it was nice to hear from an adult that it doesn’t determine everything.”
Perez’s cousin, Saul Perez-Vallejo, graduated from Carmen’s southeast high school in 2022 and now attends Marquette University. Perez-Vallejo said that as a Carmen student, he shared meaningful connections with his teachers and transition coordinators through similar experiences as first-generation or minority students.
“I think that sense of family was there straight away within being minority,” Perez-Vallejo said. “With my transition coordinators, they become not only my advisors, but also my friends. We do things like Thanksgiving, Friendsgiving or Christmas gift exchanges with our transition coordinators, because we have grown to be that sense of family and community.”
Many of Carmen’s south side students have felt seen, heard and a sense of belonging, and to continue providing that experience for Milwaukee’s south side students through a permanent facility “will be beautiful,” Lippman said. He thinks the project is representative of Carmen’s respect for its students and families, as well as its belief in students’ ability to grow and thrive.
“I know how much Carmen has impacted my life and how much they have helped me prepare for my future,” Perez said. “I can’t wait to see what they can do for many, many, many more students, especially with this new space that they have. I think this will be great for not only the students, but the community as well.”
Searching for the right location
For about 10 years, Carmen Schools has planned to build a permanent home, but finding the ideal site became one of the project’s largest obstacles.
By 2019, Carmen had begun pursuing the idea of building a high school on the campus of Alverno College, a Catholic liberal arts college for women that was founded in 1887 in Milwaukee. Carmen and Alverno leadership were “into deep discussions” about the project, and Carmen even began fundraising, said board member Bob Arzbaecher, who retired in 2013 as CEO of Actuant Corp. now called Enerpac Tool Group.
“For a variety of reasons, a lot of which I think had to do with the timing, because COVID hit right in the middle of that work, that didn’t happen,” Lippman said of Carmen’s plans with Alverno. “And so, then it was, where else in the south side community might we be able to find space?”
Carmen had to shift its sights toward another location. Lippman said that with the help of Milwaukee-based firms Ramlow/Stein Architecture + Interiors and Catalyst Construction, Carmen was able to identify the Oklahoma Avenue site, which was formerly occupied by Ascension Wisconsin Medical Arts Pavilion. It offered close proximity to both the south and southeast high school campuses.
Catalyst Construction, Ramlow/Stein Architecture + Interiors and Gilbane are partners for the new campus project.
About 80% of students attending Carmen’s south and southeast high schools live within 3 miles of the campuses, so it was important to find a location where most Carmen families live, Lippman said. This would align with Hoben’s founding vision to provide a community-based school.
“We wanted to be able to keep both our south and our southeast families,” said Alicia Dupies, vice president at Gilbane and a Carmen board member since 2018. “We kind of dropped pins in both of those school locations and said, how far from here do our students and their families live? And how do we make sure that we don’t lose any of the great families that we have already?”
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Building an independent facility
The new school facility will provide space for greater innovation in teaching and learning. And what’s more, Carmen won’t have to worry about lease extensions and other “facility-related anxiety and angst,” so that greater focus can be placed on educating students at a time when there’s a huge need for high-quality school seats in Milwaukee, Dupies said. Carmen is also looking to incorporate a workforce readiness space for students interested in the trades or other skilled work.
“It’ll include innovative learning spaces, science labs, arts, athletic spaces, expanded career development opportunities and gathering places for the broader community – all things that we’ve not been able to do across the board for 18 years,” Lippman said.
New athletic facilities, such as a full gym, workout area, locker rooms and turf soccer field, will serve as recruitment and retention tools for Carmen as well as resources for the broader community.
Less elaborate but equally as exciting to Carmen, the new school will be equipped with basic essentials like air conditioning, “state-of-the-art” security and “windows that don’t leak,” said Lippman. “It sounds simple, but it’s a really big deal making sure that we have high-functioning things,” he said.
In addition, the new classrooms will have proper wall space, storage, lighting and airflow to create a safe and inviting environment, Lippman said.
Carmen will also be able to have greater variability in the foods it serves students at the new facility. The planned STEM lab and other lab science spaces on campus will highlight the science and technology aspect of Carmen Schools, Lippman said. The facility will have more space for offices and staff collaboration as well as its own theater.
Gamboa said that while Carmen’s co-location with MPS facilities has sometimes placed limitations on its offerings, Carmen is “always grateful” for the partnership.
Carmen leaders brought in alumni, parents, students and staff to inform the design process on the project. There are renderings in the halls of Carmen’s south and southeast high school campuses to showcase what is to come.
“Certainly, some of our kids are nervous about it because it’s a bigger high school, maybe a little bit farther away from home,” Lippman said. “At the same time, they deserve a best-in-class, comprehensive high school experience, and knowing that we are going to be able to provide that for them, with support from our community, is getting kids and families and staff really excited.”
Funding the project
Over the 10 years Carmen Schools has been preparing to build a permanent home, it has “secured funds internally” to support the project, Lippman told BizTimes at Carmen’s Dec. 12 groundbreaking ceremony. He also said Carmen planned to fundraise about $15 million in total, and those fundraising efforts had already begun.
In mid-January, Lippman said Carmen is still in the planning stages of its capital campaign for the project, so “we don’t have a hard number, but we know we’re going to need community support.”
“It’ll be the first time Carmen has ever asked for community support,” Lippman said. “We live on our per pupil dollars and have been fiscally responsible in that way for years, which we’re really proud of and intend to continue.”
Lippman said Carmen is focused on fundraising from its “closest friends and family, securing early investments and commitments that will make possible this transformative educational facility for Milwaukee students.” He said Carmen’s strong financial standing kick-started the project plans and that Carmen has “some million saved” to be used toward the $55 million project cost.
“There’s already been pledges from our closest funders,” Gamboa said. “I think it’ll take a couple years to complete.”
The capital campaign will have full board participation, so all Carmen board members would support the project financially, Gamboa said.
“We’ve always had strong support from the business community, and we have a very strong board that has supported us from the beginning,” Gamboa said, noting he didn’t want to mention specific names.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Carmen fundraised about $1.5 million toward its previous plans to build a school on Alverno’s campus, and this funding has “moved over to this current campaign,” said Arzbaecher, who is co-chairing Carmen’s capital campaign with Steve Booth, chairman and CEO of Milwaukee-based financial services company Baird.
The Arzbaecher Family Foundation has already contributed funding to support Carmen’s project, he said. Booth also said he has “made a personal commitment to the campaign.”
“We’re asking the Milwaukee community to invest along with us,” Lippman said. “We believe the return on our investment will be remarkable, nothing less than helping to develop the next generation of Milwaukee students and employees and strong families and engaged citizens. We think the investment we’re asking the community to make will be a big return on that.”
In 2022, Carmen received a significant $3.5 million donation from MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. At the time, Carmen announced the funds would be used for student academic support and enrichment, staff retention and facility improvements. Carmen Schools also received funding from Northwestern Mutual in 2020 as part of the company’s strategy to invest in efforts to close the achievement gap in Milwaukee.
“Construction costs continue to go up, and we wanted to make sure that we had the right balance of cash and financing to put this together,” Gamboa said. “We’ve always had a strong balance sheet since the beginning. And I think that we were definitely ready to do it.”
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Carmen leaders and supporters moved dirt at a ceremonial groundbreaking for the new school building in December.[/caption]
Business community involvement
Milwaukee’s business community has long been involved with Carmen. Carmen’s internship program, which has existed since Carmen’s inception, is a token of this relationship.
Baird is one area company that has supported Carmen since its founding and participated in Carmen’s internship program as a placement for students.
“We have had Carmen interns throughout Baird over the years,” Booth said. “There’s lots of great stories that I still run into kids who have interned at Baird and gone on to college and are working around town.”
The company has made “relatively modest” donations to Carmen in the past, Booth said, and Baird executives like Booth have served as Carmen board members.
In addition to growing its internship program, Carmen is looking to create more intentional career engagement for its students through partnerships with more area businesses. The goal is to “create a more robust pipeline of employment in the city of Milwaukee,” Lippman said.
“We want any interested entities to reach out to us, and we’ve already gotten overwhelming support, but we need more of it, because we want all of our kids to have spaces they can learn in beyond the classroom, in this new school,” Lippman said.
The Milwaukee business community would directly benefit from supporting Carmen’s project because investing in the project would be an investment in the future workforce, Gamboa said.
“I just know the Milwaukee business community well,” Booth said. “We are remarkably philanthropic. I also know that the business community, and frankly, the entire Milwaukee community, is focused on education and underserved education, and trying to help out on that wherever and whenever they can. This is an opportunity to contribute to something that will make a very meaningful impact, in particular on the south side.”
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Rendering of Aug Prep's forthcoming North Campus at the former Cardinal Stritch property.[/caption]
School construction on the rise
Carmen’s plan to build a permanent home comes at a time when several schools have invested in new or expanded facilities in or near Milwaukee:
- St. Augustine Preparatory Academy broke ground in October on a $100 million project to establish a north side campus on the site of the now-shuttered Cardinal Stritch University in Fox Point and Glendale.
- Milwaukee Academy of Science recently opened its 24th Street campus serving K4-5th grade students.
- Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy in 2024 opened its new high school building at 2212 N. Vel R. Phillips Ave.
- Milwaukee Public Schools in 2024 completed Ronald Wilson Reagan College Preparatory High School’s expansion, which added new lab and athletics spaces to the campus.
- The United Community Center recently completed a $6 million expansion project to add a third story with more classrooms and learning spaces to its Bruce-Guadalupe Community School.
- Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in 2021 opened its new $33 million high school campus. The 100,000-square-foot building at 1818 W. National Ave. replaced the high school’s former 45,000-square-foot location at 1215 S. 45th St. in West Milwaukee.
