BY DANA DiFILIPPO
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Nobody wants Peoples Middle School.
The school in Hyde Park is scheduled to close this summer because of declining enrollment and Cincinnati Public Schools' trend toward kindergarten-through-eighth-grade schools.
Superintendent Steven Adamowski has recommended moving students from Sands Montessori and Hyde Park School into the newer Peoples property, but parents and neighbors objected.
Mr. Adamowski also suggested "mothballing" it for a year until a long-term plan is decided, or using Peoples to house students displaced as their schools are fixed under the district's $697 million facilities master plan. But school board members were reluctant to allow "one of the district's best buildings" to go empty.
Officials also considered moving Clark Montessori from the East End into Peoples because it sits in a flood plain. But school board member Sally Warner objected, calling the riverside Clark site one of the district's most beautiful. It also sits near a community center and has ample athletic fields, she said.
So district officials have charged the district's Montessori leaders with coming up with a plan for the 29-year-old
Peoples. A recommendation is expected in January.
