Thursday, July 08, 1999
CPS solicits charter plans for schools
City to fight low enrollment with new ideas
BY DANA DiFILIPPO
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Steadily falling enrollment in Cincinnati Public Schools led officials last year to announce plans to close several schools. Now, they want to open a bunch.
CPS leaders sponsored a charter school workshop Wednesday at their Corryville headquarters, where they outlined their charter-school policies and solicited suggestions for new schools.
If attendance is any indicator, they're sure to get plenty of proposals. About 100 people packed the four-hour presentation, and many had specific ideas about how to lift sagging achievement and reduce high dropout and truancy rates.
Many expressed frustration with the 47,200-student district's schools, insisting that they can do better.
“The district's track record would speak to the reason we're here,” said Corrine Kinebrew of Avondale, who envisions a charter school for teens who are parents.
Betty Warren of the West End agreed: “Our schools are so low-achieving. The people that are there in our schools don't connect with the youngsters in our community. We need someone who does.”
Others wondered why a district anticipating school closures would want to open more schools.
Superintendent Steven Adamowski pointed to the audience as the answer.
“This is indicative of the interest in this issue,” Mr. Adamowski said. “Faced with that competition, the typical institutional response is to circle the wagons and dig in our heels. But the educational landscape is changing dramatically. We have to reinvent ourselves. We need other models and we need competition. Charter schools are going to provide quality educational choices.”
State laws allow open enrollment in charter schools, so students anywhere in Ohio can attend a charter school in CPS boundaries. District residents get priority.
CPS leaders hope open en rollment will help the district lure suburban students and offset an 8,000-student loss projected in the next decade.
Under district policies, people who want to open district-approved charter schools in fall 2000 have to submit proposals by Aug. 31. For state-approved charter schools, the deadline in Oct. 1.
Ruth Coon suggests potential developers get started pronto.
“If you can't put 200 percent into this every day of every week of every year, forget it,” said the East End woman, who plans to open the East End Community Heritage School in the old Clark Academy on Eastern Avenue.
“This is our 16th draft,” she added, waving her school proposal. “Be prepared to be in there for the long run.”
Ms. Coon collaborated with neighbors and professors from the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati State Technical and Community College to draft their proposal, which aims to reverse skyrocketing dropout rates among Appalachian kids.
The K-12 school would stress peer-learning, and a “grandparents corps” would help tutor and mentor struggling students. Cincinnati State instructors would offer continuing education courses in the Clark building.
The Rev. Todd O'Neal needs no further prodding. He hopes to open a high school for dropouts and students at risk of leaving school.
“I see so many teen-agers who have dropped out. They have no focus and no goals, and they end up on the streets and go to prison,” said the Rev. Mr. O'Neal, a Heberle School teacher and pastor at the House of Joy Christian Ministry in College Hill.
“The only thing I can do when they go to jail is to go see them and give them a Bible. I want to do something beforehand to prevent that.”
Sanae Ichikawa-Burton of Pleasant Ridge plans to open a grade school based on the Kumon method, which emphasizes discipline, concentration and self-confidence.
“If (CPS leaders) don't do something different, they get the same result,” said Ms. Ichikawa-Burton, who teaches in after-school Kumon programs in Hyde Park and Wyoming. “I've been seeing wonderful results with the Kumon method.”
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