BLUE ASH — In the shadow of a public college, a national first took place here Wednesday afternoon.

        It was the grand opening of Blue Ash Elementary School on the campus of UC's Raymond Walters College — a unique partnership heralded as “cutting edge.”

        It is believed to be the first time in the United States that a public elementary school will operate on a public college campus.

        The elementary, with nearly 500 students in kindergarten through fourth grade, opens Monday.

Students (from left) Aaron Grzegorzewski, Ryan Glass, Megan Glass, and Alex Norris recite the Pledge of Allegiance during opening ceremonies. | ZOOM |

        Both parties consider it win-win. Elementary teachers can take credit courses for professional development at Walters, which will use a wing of the new school for its night and weekend classes. Sycamore Schools will lease the 11 acres for $10 per year.

        In a poetry presentation with fellow fourth-grader Jenlain Coyle, young Frank Pan cut to the chase:

        “This school is bigger, better and cooler than we thought. ... Do we have to keep it this clean?”

        For a moment, the two stole the show from the other speakers as the hundreds attending the opening ceremony in the school's gymnasium dissolved in a sea of laughter.

        Other speakers included U.S. Rep. Rob Portman, University of Cincinnati President Joseph Steger, Raymond Walters Dean Barbara Bardes and Blue Ash Elementary Principal Adrienne James.“It's thrilling to open a new school,” said Sycamore Board of Education President Charles Wilfong, “but it's exhilarating to be on the cutting edge.”

BLUE ASH ELEMENTARY

Opens: Monday.    Capacity: 575 students, K-fourth grade.    Size: 84,870 square feet.    Location: Southeast corner of 132-acre campus of UC's Raymond Walters College.    Cost: $10.7 million.School

        The schools will operate independently.

        In a somewhat similar arrangement, Eastern Kentucky University's College of Education operates a public laboratory school on its campus, but teachers are from EKU.

        Cradling his 3-month-old daughter, Eman, Rashid Ahmed looked over a display case of school photos that dated to 1897. The new school will have an expansive computer lab and a media center.

        “We're really impressed,” the 42-year-old Blue Ash man said. “The classrooms are much bigger — all the teaching elements.”

        He'll have a first-grader, Ahmed, and a kindergartener, Aisha, enrolled at the school.

        Ahmed doesn't know his schedule yet but he might share a classroom with Monica Werden, who washed down a chocolate-chip cookie with lemonade in a cafetoriumawash in shades of light purple.

        “My favorite color's purple,” she said. “I haven't seen my classroom yet, but I'm sure it's gonna be great.”

        Above a water fountain, a plaque memorializes her late brother, Clayton Werden IV, who died in 1997 at age 7 after he was diagnosed with aplastic anemia, a rare form of anemia in which bone marrow produces inadequate levels of essential blood components. He went to Blue Ash Elementary.

        Their father, Clayton Werden, said the arrangement with Raymond Walters will “get the kids to know there is higher education.”

        That's reciprocal. College students will now see playground equipment on their campus.

        As the ceremony was clearing out, Kinnari Joshi, 21, of Montgomery made her way through Walters' Muntz Hall, which is still undergoing renovations.

        She's finishing up English-as-second-language summer courses, and will study business this fall.

        “I'll feel like I'm back to school, too, not college,” the native of India said with a smile.

        “That will remind me of memories. Like, "Oh, I used to do that.”'

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