By Denise Smith Amos and Jennifer Edwards
The Cincinnati Enquirer

HYDE PARK - Hundreds of Summit Country Day School preschool and kindergarten students will finish the school year, beginning Wednesday, at Crossroads Community Church in Oakley because of damage to Summit's main building, school officials announced late Thursday.

Classes will resume for Summit's high school students on Tuesday at an as yet undisclosed location, said Jennifer Pierson, school spokeswoman.

"Plans are not finalized, but we do have an off-campus location in the works," she said. "We want our students to return to classes as soon as possible."

The rest of Summit, its first through eighth grades, will return to campus Wednesday. Grades 1 and 2 will go back to their classes at Holmes Hall (a renovated gym separate from the main building), and grades 4 through 8 will return to the Harold C. Schott Middle School building. That structure also is separate.

But third grade, which had classes in the main building, will have to use portable classrooms being brought to the campus, Pierson said.

The plans come just four days after a large section of Summit's main building collapsed Sunday, toppling three stories and leaving the fourth story buckled and the roof suspended.

No one was in the building at the time, but the school has been temporarily closed all week, idling 1,100 students.

The lunchroom is in the main building, which will not be able to be occupied for months, according to Cincinnati building officials. A lunch service will bring food in for students, but transportation issues still have to be worked out, Pierson said.

For about 200 of Summit's Montessori students - who are prekindergarten and kindergarten age - classes will resume Wednesday at Crossroads Community Church on Madison and Ridge roads in Oakley. Students will remain there for the rest of the school year.

Summit is a college-preparatory Catholic school; Crossroads is an interdenominational church.

Elizabeth Argyres of Clifton Heights - whose son, Tennant, 12, attends sixth grade - was relieved classes would resume. But first, she wants assurance the middle school has been thoroughly inspected and ruled safe.

"My worry is that they might not inspect the newer building as thoroughly as the older ones," she said late Thursday. "... But it's a great school and it's going to survive any dislocations."

Meanwhile, workers began Thursday to remove the buckled fourth floor and suspended roof.

The damaged section is next to an $11 million construction project for a new Lower School for Montessori and elementary students.

The removal work is expected to be tedious and take days, said Bill Langevin, director of Cincinnati's buildings and inspections department.

"The area where the collapse occurred has to remain safe, and that is the primary thrust of all our efforts at this point," he said. "Once that area becomes safe and the hazards are removed, I don't see any reason why the campus couldn't reopen."

Prior to classes resuming, he plans to review the campus and make sure the collapsed portion remains blocked off.

"Someone could inadvertently enter that area and get injured," he said. "We would have to evaluate any plan proposed and approve it, but if everything is independent of the main building, I couldn't see why we wouldn't approve."

In a preliminary assessment this week, Langevin said excavation for the project was too deep and too close to the existing foundation. Bad weather and a previously undetected difference in the depth of foundations of the portion of the building that collapsed likely contributed to the failure, he said.

Officials with contractor Turner Construction Co., which has subcontractors on the project, have referred repeated requests for comment to the school, saying Summit officials have instructed them to do so.

A preconstruction soils report prepared for Summit by engineers warned in February 2003 that foundations in the 114-year-old main building needed extra support during construction of an adjacent building.

If recommendations in the report had been heeded, Langevin says, the collapse might have been avoided.

The soils report is often required by state building code, depending on the complexity of the project, Langevin said. For this project, such a report was required, he added.

It is expected contractors would follow it unless they have a valid engineering issue. Langevin has said no such issue was evident.

If a penalty for not following the recommendations would be imposed, it would come from Langevin, as the top building official for the city. He declined Thursday to discuss it.

The top building official in neighboring Butler County said Thursday he couldn't imagine what kind of fine could be levied in this sort of case.

"We have penalties, but I don't know of any penalties for someone doing anything like that," said Bill Balsinger, Butler's chief building official.

"They paid the penalty when the building fell down. I don't know what I would do to fine them," he said. "Nobody got hurt, but somebody is going to be out some big bucks. I am just glad it wasn't in my jurisdiction."

Summit has hired two independent engineering firms - Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates Inc. of Chicago and THP Limited Inc. of Cincinnati - to assess structural engineering issues related to Sunday's collapse.

Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates has expertise in structural engineering issues. The company was involved in the stabilization of the World Trade Center after the 1993 bombing.

THP, with more than 30 years' experience in Cincinnati, has worked on Great American Ball Park, the Aronoff Center and the Contemporary Arts Center.