Cincinnati Public Schools' planned Entrepreneurial High School is getting a $450,000 boost to become a successful small urban high school.

        Cincinnati-based KnowledgeWorks Foundation announced Thursday it will administer a three-year, $5.15 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create eight small urban schools nationwide, including the Entrepreneurial High School. The school is scheduled to open in 2002-03 with 125 ninth-grade students and expand eventually to 400 students in grades 9-12.

        The school, which will receive $50,000 for planning and $400,000 for implementation, is part of CPS' plan to redesign its five lowest-performing high schools into smaller specialty schools and create several more specialty schools.

        Behind the grant is an effort to create a network of small schools called The Model Secondary Schools Project. The schools are designed to use strategies to close the achievement gap that separates minority and underserved students from their high-achieving counterparts.

        “It's phenomenal to have $50,000 for the planning of a school,” said David Burns, CPS's high school restructuring manager. “There's a lot of work there you don't take into account.”

        The planning money will be used for marketing the school, as well as allowing teachers, community members and others to travel to see how entrepreneurial schools function elsewhere, said David Burns, CPS' high school restructuring manager.

        The bulk of the grant will go toward creating the small urban school, he said. That will mean about an extra $1,000 for every student toward establishing curriculum. For example, students will be required to build projects, such as a Hovercraft or a can crusher, and the money will buy materials, Mr. Burns said.

        The school is to be located downtown or Over-the-Rhine.

        A school in Cleveland, yet to be created, will also be a grant recipient, as well as schools in Compton, Calif., Boston, Clark County, Nev., East St. Louis, Ill., Detroit and Rochester, N.Y.

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