Cincinnati Public Schools' only year-round high school, a new charter school opening in July, will focus on construction trades, technology and academics — with some students building houses before they graduate.

        ISUS Trade and Technology Prep Community School will target students aged 16-21 who are chronic truants or dropouts or those with a history of behavioral problems or juvenile detention.

        “We take underachievers and we teach them to be successful,” said Ann Higdon, founder and president of the charter school and president of Improved Solutions for Urban Systems (ISUS) Inc.

        ISUS Inc., a nonprofit organization based in Dayton, Ohio, formed in 1991 to better prepare dropouts for careers. ISUS partnered with Dayton City Schools in 1992 before starting its own charter school there in 1999.

        “The Dayton school has been an extremely successful program,” said Dottie Howe, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Education. “We see this as a wonderful alternative to the traditional classroom.”

        Now, the charter school's officials plan to recruit about 120 Cincinnati students otherwise at risk of dropping out of school so they can earn a diploma at ISUS while learning how to construct houses and rebuild computers. The affordable, energy-efficient homes will be sold to low- to moderate-income buyers.

        The program is part of the curriculum in the new charter school opening on the former campus of the Queen City Vocational Center in the West End.

        “We were concerned about the dropout rate, and industry and businesses were telling us kids weren't ready to go into the business field,” Ms. Higdon said. “We decided to make their education relevant.”

        Along with the construction program, the technology and preparatory school will have a computers and electronics program. Students can work toward a trade certification from Sinclair Community College in Dayton while attending the charter school.

        Students will also take core academic classes in math, science, reading, writing and social studies and must pass all five portions of the ninth-grade proficiency tests for graduation. The curriculum, though, will be relevant to their lives — including articles on Appalachian heritage and social issues such as drugs and crime, Ms. Higdon said. They also have to have 90 percent attendance to graduate.

        A marketing blitz to recruit students and hire staff for the charter school begins in June.

        Soon after, about 20 students from Dayton's ISUS school will trek to Cincinnati to refurbish the Queen City Vocational Center building on Ezzard Charles Drive.

        They'll show prospective students here how to paint, clean and refurbish the building, and they'll share some of their personal experiences.

        ISUS school will be the third charter school sponsored by Cincinnati Public Schools' board of education and will run on a 210-day calendar. Charter schools operate separately from other public schools and are governed by parent groups or nonprofit organizations. They're intended to offer students more educational choices.

        The students may also earn stipends starting at $12 a day after their first quarter at the charter school.

        Like the initiative to build affordable housing in the construction program, a community service component is attached to technology programs. Students will rebuild donated computers and redistribute them to needy kids, Ms. Higdon said.

        Dayton's ISUS school is tackling a 60-house development in a badly blighted neighborhood speckled with abandoned houses near the city's downtown.

        Students say the responsibility they shoulder at the school and the familial atmosphere fostered through ISUS make a difference in their lives.

        “I just needed some support,” said Rebecca Ines, 17, of Dayton, an A and B student who was getting F's at her high school before she came to ISUS in January. “Now I'm teaching my mom and family stuff they don't know.”

About charter schools
       

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