Tuesday, February 08, 2000
Jacobs teachers hatch own plan
Math-science unit would expand
BY DANA DiFILIPPO
The Cincinnati Enquirer
After learning their program could be eliminated, teachers with the Jacobs Center's Cincinnati Academy of Math and Science (CAMAS) are pitching their own reform plan to Cincinnati Public Schools leaders.
Jacobs' CAMAS teachers want to redesign their program to serve children in kindergarten through eighth grade — or possibly through 12th grade if a CAMAS program at the Hughes Center is eliminated — and relocate it to the Porter-Hays school complex in the West End. The program now enrolls about 200 students in grades 7-8 and shares a building in Winton Place with a Paideia program.
Administrators want to convert Jacobs into a 7-12 Paideia program and eliminate the CAMAS program for elementary students at Quebec Heights in Price Hill. CAMAS is a college-preparatory program that offers accelerated math, science and technology studies.
Jacobs is the latest in a string of CPS schools — including Dater Junior High, Taft High School and McKinley, Linwood and Burton elementaries — whose staffs have drafted alternate reform plans when faced with recommended closures, unwanted changes or slipping achievement.
“We're tiny but we're mighty, and we'd like to get bigger,” said Paula Hanley, program facilitator of Jacobs' CAMAS. “We are 100 percent in line with the district's goals of meeting customers' requests. We have an excellent math and science program, and we can better serve kids and cut transportation costs by moving (closer to) downtown. We want our own campus with our own identity.”
Proponents hope to name the new school after State Sen. Mark Mallory, D-Cincinnati, a graduate of CPS' CAMAS program and supporter of it.
Proficiency test scores of Jacobs' CAMAS students have risen steadily the past three years, Ms. Hanley said. But with an uncertain future, the school has had trouble maintaining a dedicated faculty and recruiting students, she added.
School board member Florence Newell praised the proposal as a way to maintain CAMAS in the primary grades. Planners should consult the West End community to gauge support there, she added.
“I'm really encouraged that schools are taking the initiative” to reform themselves, Ms. Newell said. “The more ownership individuals have of a program or idea, the more effective they will be.”
Board President Rick Williams agreed: “One of the unexpected and unintended successes of the reforms ... is that schools are linking with their communities to come up with their own proposals to improve their schools.”
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