By Jennifer Edwards
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Summit Country Day senior Anna Ryan sings with the Camerata, which is the upper school choir, during a prayer service at Good Shepherd Church in Montgomery.. (Meggan Booker/The Cincinnati Enquirer)

MONTGOMERY - Xavier University is letting Summit Country Day School use two of its buildings on campus for high school classes for the rest of the school year. A portion of Summit's main building collapsed a week ago today. Beginning Tuesday, Summit's juniors and seniors will attend class in the A.B. Cohen Center, near the Cintas Center, and freshmen and sophomores will go to the Alumni Center across campus.

Summit students also will have access to Xavier's science labs and library. Xavier professors have offered to give guest lectures to Summit students, Joseph Devlin, Summit's head of school, announced Saturday.

SUMMIT HEADS BACK TO SCHOOL

Summit's first through eighth-grade students are expected to return to campus Wednesday. Grades 1 and 2 will return to Holmes Hall (a renovated gym separate from the main Summit building). Grades 4-8 will return to the Harold C. Schott Middle School building, a separate building. Grade 3, which had classes in the main building, will be in portable classrooms next to Holmes Hall. There are 206 primary students and 248 Montessori students. Informational meetings for Upper School parents and students will be held three times Monday in Summit's Kyte Theatre on campus: noon, 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. Preschool and kindergarten Montessori parents will have a reception Wednesday at Crossroads Community Church, Madison and Ridge roads in Oakley, at 8:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.

"We are going to college," Devlin told about 1,200 students, parents, faculty, and alumni at a prayer service at Good Shepherd Catholic Church here. The crowd applauded.

Board members said the space was offered for free.

Many high school students said they are excited about going to Xavier. Austin Berry, who was displaying UC Bearcat shorts under his Summit garb, said, "I'm a Bearcat fan, but it's pretty cool that I'm going to Xavier."

But some students were disappointed that upperclassmen were to be separated from underclassmen.

"Our school just fell apart. We kind of want to stay together, and they're separating us," said Eilise O'Donnell, a 16-year-old sophomore.

At the half-hour prayer service, senior Mollie Ward of Indian Hill told the crowd that if tragedy had to happen, Summit was strong enough to overcome it.

"The entire building could have crumbled, and we could be set up in tepees in the parking lot with our teachers, and we'd still be known for our academic excellence," Ward, 17, said proudly.

Board chairman Mark Bodnar assured parents that each building will be thoroughly inspected before students would return.

Denise Smith Amos contributed.

E-mail jedwards@enquirer.com