BY DANA DiFILIPPO
The Cincinnati Enquirer
About a dozen parents -- angry they weren't invited to meetings about the future of their school -- urged Cincinnati Board of Education members Monday to adopt a more accessible and open approach to school reform.
The parents, most associated with Sands Montessori School, complained that administrators failed to inform and include them in discussions about whether to move Sands out of its crumbling 86-year-old building in the West End. District leaders are considering moving it to Peoples Middle School in Hyde Park or a site on the West Side.
"You have to talk to the parents about decisions that affect their children," said Ann Lugbill, a Mount Washington mother of two CPS students. "This is not customer-friendly. Parents have voted with their feet in terms of the education they want. Take that into account."
Sands debated
Ms. Lugbill, like most Sands parents who attended Monday's school board meeting, learned that CPS leaders were debating Sands' fate at the board's committee meetings last Wednesday.
Then, Superintendent Steven Adamowski cautioned board members against expanding magnet programs -- as parents have demanded -- if they want to improve low-performing neighborhood schools. More magnet schools would continue to draw the district's higher-income, higher-performing students -- at the expense of neighborhood schools, he warned.
Monday, Mr. Adamowski assured the Sands parents that his warning did not mean magnet programs would be dismantled.
"We're on the same side here," he said.
But parents said CPS leaders too often make big decisions behind closed doors.
"There are too many rumors that we are not getting information from," said Kathy Gentry, a downtown resident and PTO president at Sands. "The information is coming piecemeal, and we can't put the pieces together to understand where (CPS leaders) are going with this."
Tim O'Connor, a Sands parent from College Hill, questioned why CPS leaders targeted Sands for change.
"Why fix something that isn't broken?" Mr. O'Connor asked about the popular, successful school.
The Sands-Peoples dilemma came to light as district administrators prepare to implement recommendations from a preliminary facilities master plan. The plan is not due out until Oct. 26, but administrators have briefed the affected schools in closed community meetings last week and this week. Nineteen schools are recommended for closure, but 14 may be rebuilt.
Monday, teachers, parents and principals at four more schools learned their recommended fates.
The plan suggests that Heberle become a kindergarten through eighth-grade school. Porter and Hayes, which already share many facilities, are recommended to merge into a K-8 school. Bloom Middle School in the West End is recommended for closure.
