BLUE ASH — Ground will be broken Friday for the new Blue Ash Elementary School, the nation's first public elementary of its kind on a college campus.

        The $10.6 million school will be on the southeast corner of the University of Cincinnati's Raymond Walters College campus. The school is scheduled to open in August 2002.

Blue Ash Elementary fifth-grader Isaiah Brown, 5, gets a hand from PTA Vice President Bonnie Grzegorzewski with a banner that will hang for the groundbreaking on the campus of Raymond Walters College. (Gary Landers photo) | ZOOM |

        The 1 p.m. groundbreaking ceremony at the college, 9555 Plainfield Road, will reflect this unique educational partnership.

        Officials from UC, Raymond Walters and Sycamore schools will speak.

        Christa Wall of Blue Ash, a Raymond Walters graduate, and her two daughters, Courtney Bullock, 9, and Morgan Bullock, 7, who attend Blue Ash Elementary, will plant a blue ash tree in honor of the partnership.

        “I think it's got a lot of potential,” Mrs. Wall said. “My understanding is we'll get to use a lot of resources Raymond Walters has. That's another leg up on education for the kids.”

        Back at old Blue Ash Elementary, at 8522 Kenwood Road, students will watch the event live via video conferencing. They created a backdrop for the groundbreaking — a banner with handprints of all 508 students. That banner will hang in the new school.

        “This is going to be such a blessing to us,” Principal Adrienne James said. “It will provide a wonderful, optimal learning atmosphere. There will be larger classrooms, classrooms that can be isolated.

ABOUT BLUE ASH ELEMENTARY

• Size: 84,870 square feet.    • Location: Southeast corner of Raymond Walters College's 132-acre campus.     • Capacity: 575 students, K-4; 75 staff.     • Classrooms: 23 regular; four adult education.     • Other features: Gymnasium, cafetorium, media center.     • Completion: August 2002.     • Cost: $10.6 million.

        “Currently, we don't have any doors. We have the open classroom concept. It's not conducive to the way we teach. We want our students to be very active with cooperative learning. There's a lot of noise. It's healthy learning noise, but that ends up being a disturbance.”

        The K-4 school will benefit both the college and Sycamore schools. Under the agreement, Sycamore will lease 11 acres for $10 a year in exchange for building a wing with four adult-education classrooms.

        The classrooms will be used for staff development for Sycamore teachers by day, and instructional space for Raymond Walters students evenings and weekends. That will ease crowding at the college, which has 3,800 students.

        “We actually have some programs we can't house here because we're out of room,” college Dean Barbara Bardes said.

        Raymond Walters will offer credit courses to Blue Ash teachers as part of its professional development program. Sycamore will build a playing field to be shared by both schools.

        Sycamore school district voters in 1998 approved a $45 million bond issue for new buildings and renovating facilities. Sycamore needed a new Blue Ash Elementary, but land is scarce in Blue Ash. The city informed the college that Sycamore was looking for a site. The college already had determined a school would be a compatible neighbor on campus.

        The two schools will operate independently, making it a unique arrangement. Eastern Kentucky University's College of Education operates a public laboratory school on its campus, but students are taught by EKU professors and education majors.

        The relationship fits with the college's mission, Ms. Bardes said.

        “While the college has a broader mission of providing two-year programs and educational opportunities, we have also seen ourselves as offering a wide variety of services and opportunities to the northeast sector of the community,” she said.

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