BY DANA DiFILIPPO
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Project Succeed Academy isn't serving the students it was set up to serve, according to a recent study of the 2-year-old school's first year.
A third of the academy's students had no suspensions or expulsions during the school year before they were placed in Project Succeed, the North Fairmount school for Cincinnati Public Schools' worst discipline offenders, according to a report by the district's research and evaluation office.
Further, many students enrolled in neighborhood schools at similar grade levels had longer discipline records than many Project Succeed students, according to the report.
Lionel Brown, the district's director of student affairs and Project Succeed's founder, disputed the report's findings as incomplete.
"The report only reflected three quarters of the first school year Project Succeed was open," Mr. Brown said. "You just need a longer period of time to make an accurate assessment. At best, I see this as information; I don't call it conclusive or decisive information at all."
The report's results also were skewed because the academy recovered children who had dropped out of the district and therefore had no discipline records, Mr. Brown added.
Other findings included:
Project Succeed students came from 62 schools, with an average of seven students from each school. About 300 students enrolled the first year.
Seventy-eight percent of parents polled said they were satisfied with the program, and 63 percent said they wanted their child to continue there.
Principals interviewed were positive about the program's concept, but half said the impact on their schools was negligible because only a few students eligible to enroll at Project Succeed could attend because of a lack of space.
