BY DANA DiFILIPPO
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Magnet programs have proved so popular in Cincinnati Public Schools that 1,900 students were turned away this year. But creating more magnet schools, which tend to draw higher-performing and higher-income students, could hurt the district's efforts to improve its struggling neighborhood schools, district leaders said Wednesday.
The dilemma arose during the school board's committee meetings, as board members debated whether to open a neighborhood school or magnet program at Peoples Middle School in Hyde Park.
Peoples is one of 19 schools recommended for closure under the district's preliminary facilities master plan. Fourteen of those schools would be rebuilt or renovated.
The plan calls for $450 million in work to district buildings and property -- excluding costs associated with site acquisition, demolition, the use of temporary facilities and equipment. Administrators have been meeting this week in closed-door sessions with principals and parents at the affected schools, but they don't plan to release the recommendations until Oct. 26.
"It is self-defeating to open more magnet slots," Superintendent Steven Adamowski said. "If we open up too many magnet slots, we are handicapping our ability to create our vision of high-quality K-8 schools. There is a critical balance between magnet and neighborhood schools."
But some board members worried that more parents might take their kids to private or charter schools if administrators don't address the demand for more magnets. Oak Tree Montessori, a charter school that opened downtown last month, quickly met capacity and has a waiting list.
"You're making the very big assumption that people will leave their children in the neighborhood schools," board member Catherine Ingram said.
Board member Sally Warner agreed: "Nineteen hundred people were turned down. Those people are not going to choose neighborhood schools that are not working."
District leaders listed three options for Peoples, which is expected to close at the end of the school year:
Open Peoples as a kindergarten-through-sixth-grade Montessori school, expanding it to K-8 in three years. Redistrict and replace Sands and Carson with a new Montessori school on the west side.
Close Sands and move its Montessori program to Peoples as a K-6 Montessori school, expanding it to K-8 in three years.
Move Hyde Park School to Peoples as a K-8 neighborhood school. Several elementaries have learned their recommended fate in closed "community consultations," which are being held through Oct. 14.
According to the recommendations, McKinley School and Linwood Fundamental Academy -- on cramped lots in a floodplain -- would close, and a new K-8 school would be built elsewhere in the East End. If the district couldn't find a suitable site, workers would renovate McKinley.
Rothenberg, Vine and Washington Park schools would close and be replaced with two K-8 schools, one on each side of Liberty Street. Windsor would be closed and its students would be absorbed by Parham, Douglass and Hoffman.
Other recommendations:
Creating a neighborhood school in Oakley.
Making Carson a K-8 neighborhood school, and moving its Montessori program to a new site on the west side.
Closing Sands and moving its Montessori into a new site downtown. Some principals expressed cautious optimism.
"The fate of our school isn't that terrible," Vine Principal Greg Hook said. "They say they want to close the old Vine and open a new one. Who can argue with that?"
But some parents complained about the district's secrecy.
"Having these kinds of discussions without people really knowing about them is really weird for a district that has to pass levies," said Sally Krisel of Northside, whose daughter attends Sands. "We believe in public education, and we want to hang in there despite all the bad things you hear about. But all this is beginning to make me feel really defeated about that."
Ms. Russell defended the closed sessions, saying the draft plan could be changed as affected principals and parents comment. Administrators also aimed to alert schools to the potential changes before they appeared in the newspaper, she added.
