Two weeks after threatening to boycott planning meetings, teachers whose students live in three east-side neighborhoods again offered their support to build a new K-12 school in the East End.

        “We will be able to continue but we will be a smaller group of people,” said Carol Conlan, a fifth- and sixth-grade teacher at McKinley School. “But we are dedicated to these kids.” Some group members will probably not come back, she said.

        Fellow members of their school planning committee - made up of residents from Columbia Tuscu lum, the East End and Linwood - said at a Thursday meeting they will fight any efforts by the Cincinnati board of education to build the new school on the Eastern Avenue site where McKinley School is now located. Such expansion could displace residents, they said.

        The community group, which has been planning a new school in the East End for two years, said it will stand behind plans to build at the location they believe will best serve both McKinley and Linwood schools' students: the Rakestraw site at Kellogg and Stanley avenues, also in the East End.

        The new school is needed because McKinley and Linwood are outdated, said McKinley Principal Roman Walton. Neither has adequate area outside for play, he said.

        Some residents said last month they were fed up with the board's disregard for their research and findings. They vowed to quit attending planning meetings until a site is selected.

        The board of education the previous week had approved 6-1 a new study to explore building at the site of the current McKinley school.

        Members of the East End group object to that location because:

        • The Rakestraw site is larger and would better accommodate recreation and a bigger building.

        • They don't want residents or businesses displaced to expand the site or to block future development.

        • Thousands of volunteer hours have been geared toward combining Linwood and McKinley schools into a new K-12 building at a new site.

        During Thursday's meeting, East End community members were encouraged to hear school board member Harriet Russell reaffirm that a K-12 school will be built in their neighborhood and that within four weeks an architect should be chosen.

        Ms. Russell, the only board member who dissented on the new study to explore building at the McKinley site, said the feedback was appreciated and the group should continue its work.

        “We don't want to lose the momentum or lose the community engagement,” she said.

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