Original Research by School Decision on Upgrade Media Arts Schools Inc
UpGrade Media Arts Schools Inc. was an independent charter district in Milwaukee County serving grades six through twelve, built around a single school that focused on media arts and offered dual-enrollment opportunities. That school has now closed. Publicly reported sources indicate the closure happened in 2025, removing what was a small, specialized option for families in the Wauwatosa area.
The district was tiny. Enrollment was in the single digits of students at the time of closure, spread thinly across grades eight through twelve. The student body was predominantly Black. Because the school was so small, state testing results for math, English language arts, science, and social studies were all suppressed, meaning the state did not release proficiency rates or participation data. This is common when too few students take the tests to report results reliably. There is no way to judge academic performance from standardized assessments for this district.
What is measurable is the chronic absenteeism rate, which fell in the bottom quartile among Milwaukee County’s districts. More than half of the students missed enough school to be considered chronically absent, a figure that raises concerns about daily attendance and engagement. No information was available on the number of students with disabilities or English learners, nor on discipline, staffing, or course access.
The district did not have a reported graduation rate. That gap likely reflects the school’s closure before a full cohort could finish, or that the student counts were too small to report. Given the grade band that included high school, a parent looking at this district while it was open would have wanted to ask directly about postsecondary plans and credit accumulation.
The single school’s media arts focus and dual-enrollment program were distinctive offerings, but with such a small student body the range of courses and extracurriculars would have been necessarily limited. A family considering this option when it was operating would have needed to weigh the appeal of a specialized creative curriculum against the practical realities of a very small peer group and the attendance challenges the data show.
Now that the school has closed, this district no longer provides any educational service. Students who might have attended have moved to other schools. For a parent or resident reading this profile, the important takeaway is that UpGrade Media Arts Schools Inc. is no longer accepting students. The district’s history illustrates a small charter experiment that ended, but it offers no current pathway for enrollment. If you are looking for a media-arts focus in Milwaukee County today, you would need to research other options, as this one has ceased operations.
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