The second wave of new principals in Milwaukee Public Schools is going to hit shore tonight at a meeting of the Milwaukee School Board’s finance committee. This time, it is slated to bring new principals to 19 schools. Last month, the first wave brought new leaders to 21 schools.

The two waves – and there will be at least a few more new principals before September – are both a major opportunity and a major concern. Principals are crucial to a school and, if the new batch has good impact overall, that will be a big plus for MPS. But the unusually large number of new principals means almost a quarter of all MPS schools will be under new leadership, which can be a stressful development for a school.

Assuming the committee and, next week, the full school board approve, the new group will include five current MPS principals who are being trasnferred to new assignments and 14 people who are being hired for or promoted to principal jobs. Among the newcomers to the ranks of MPS principals will be Peter Samaranayke at Rufus King High School, the most prestigious high school school in the system; Michael Cipriano at Hamilton High; and Brian Brzezinski at Pulaski. Cynthia Eastern, who has been principal of Pulaski the last several years, will become principal of the School of Career and Technical Education, which is being created as part of the overhaul of Custer High School.

The Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association, the union for Milwaukee Public Schools teachers, had two lines of defense against making  concessions as the financial squeeze on MPS tightened.

The first was that, due to langauge in the bill backed by Gov. Scott Walker and Republican legislators, if the MTEA agreed to any changes in its contract, which goes through June 2013, the entire contract would be wiped out. The second was that the union had already made concessions when it settled in September 2010 and just wasn’t going to make any more. 

The first line of defense stands to be erased in the light of changes made by the legislature’s joint finance committee that would allow the MPS contract to be changed without bringing down the roof.

And the Milwaukee School Board, as described ina Journal Sentinel story,  put the question squarely to the union last week of whether it is going to stick by the second response. The board asked that the union to agree to have teachers pay 5.8% of their salaries toward their pensions. Although that is technically the way the system works now (with MPS paying a matching amount), MPS and many other school districts have paid both shares of the pension payments for many years.