The Entrepreneurship High School, set to open this August to 125 Cincinnati ninth-graders, will be the only high school like it in the nation, its organizers say.

        While other schools offer a business course here or there, this high school will build its academic instruction — its math, science, social studies and other classes — around the creation and care of business. Students will learn to start and operate their own businesses and make and take products to market.

        Students will have to successfully complete six projects to graduate, says David Burns, career-technology manager for Cincinnati Public Schools.

        Annually, the school will add grades and serve 400 or so students by 2006, Mr. Burns says.

        Jim Clingman, a consultant helping found the school, says it will point inner-city kids toward economic self-empowerment.

        “Kids just need to be told that they can make their own job,” he says. “They don't know the talents they have until somebody reaches into their brain and tells them to look at them.”

Business partners

        The school already has an advisory board that has about 20 entrepreneurs and business contacts, Mr. Burns says. Union Savings Banks and Guardian Savings Banks also are partners.

        Yet students and parents have yet to board this bandwagon. The deadline for enrolling is May 31 and 20 students have signed up.

        One reason is uncertainty.

        The school system hasn't hired a principal or teachers yet. Most of the necessary computers, educational materials and even furniture needs to be acquired.

        Most important, the school needs space.

        A contract hasn't been signed, but Mr. Clingman says he expects the school to use space inside the Cincinnati Business Incubator at 1634 Central Parkway. The incubator, in Over-the-Rhine, is a nonprofit organization that houses small business start-ups.

        Mr. Clingman and Mr. Burns say they aren't nervous. The money is there, they say.

        The school district is budgeting an estimated $5,882 for each ninth-grader. And the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is spending $5 million in total on this and other new “small schools” here, will contribute about $1,000 per student over three years, Mr. Burns says.
       

Parents' choice

        But parental buy-in had better happen soon.

        After May 31, geography — not student or parent interest — may dictate where next year's freshmen will go to school. Cincinnati Public may assign pupils to schools based on proximity, mainly to ensure proper bus service.

        But it's hard to blame parents for being bedazzled or even confused by the sudden array of new educational opportunities for students. The system is converting most of its large, comprehensive schools into smaller “schools of choice,” mini-academies that prepare students for college, a career or both.

        Taft High School, for instance, became an information technology school this year. This fall, Western Hills High School will house a design technology school; Withrow, an international studies school; Woodward, a manufacturing processes and engineering program.

        The result: Fewer Latin classes but more students learning marketable skills.

        School leaders hope that will boost Cincinnati's graduation rate of 58 percent. The key, Mr. Burns and Mr. Clingman say, is to grab students in ninth and 10th grades and show how school can help them be the boss of their futures.

       Call Denise Smith Amos at 768-8395, or e-mail damos@enquirer.com.

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