By Jennifer Mrozowski
The Cincinnati Enquirer

GUIDE TO SCHOOLS

Guide to Tristate schools (PDFs): Public | Private

Cincinnati school board members approved designs Monday for the new Hays and Porter elementary schools, expected to open in 2005.

The new 66,000-square-foot Porter will be home to a Cincinnati Academy of Mathematics and Science magnet program for 450 pupils in grades 4-8. The cost is estimated at $10.3 million.

The 74,000-square-foot, $12.9 million Hays will be a neighborhood K-8 school. The school will house about 550 pupils.

Each building will be 21/2 stories with gymnasiums of about 6,000 square feet.

Both schools will be built on the site where the old Hays and Porter now sit in the West End. The old buildings, which are now joined, are expected to be demolished this school year.

The two new structures will be made of light and dark brick that blend in with the surrounding community buildings and will each have a two-story glass entryways, said architect and project manager Wade A. Price of Moody-Nolan Inc.

"The glass entries establish a main entry on the corners that draw you into the buildings," he said.

The entryways also will let in lots of natural light, he said.

Hays students will be housed this school year in the West End building on Poplar Street that formerly housed Sands Montessori.

Porter school, which had been closed, is now housing Heberle students. They moved to Porter after lead paint hazards were found in their school in April.

Heberle students were expected to be moved back to their school in November, but a meeting is being held today to determine when they will return to their school.

Hays and Porter are part of Cincinnati's $1 billion, decade-long rebuilding project. The project includes 35 new buildings and 31 renovated buildings.

The first Cincinnati public school to be built in two decades is Rockdale Academy, which is now under construction in Avondale.

---

E-mail jmrozowski@enquirer.com