The complexity of Cincinnati Public Schools' $985 million construction program is becoming painfully clear as the district tries to nail down the next phase of construction planning in the face of rapidly shrinking student enrollment.

Both the district and the Ohio School Facilities Commission - which is helping to fund and oversee the project - acknowledged from the start that students would be leaving. But the enrollment decline happened faster and sharper than they had predicted. This year's enrollment is 6 percent below projection, dropping a district that once included nearly 80,000 students to just 38,786.

Now the district must remain flexible and communicative as it continues to match the scope of construction to the size of enrollment.

The 10-year construction plan is arranged in four segments in part to adjust to enrollment fluctuations. But the speed at which students are leaving makes a complicated project just that much harder. Before readjusting its second phase - set to begin in July - the district has had to revisit its first phase, speeding up consolidation of two pairs of elementary schools and considering scrapping a new magnet school in the West End.

All of this makes for a strange and difficult dance indeed, in a district already facing enormous academic challenges.

But manage the changes the district must. Voters who invested $480 million in a bond levy to fund the construction want assurance they won't be paying for empty space. And families set to send their children to the new buildings want deadlines met and promises kept.

A perfectly executed plan is hardly likely, but the district can deliver a solid project by collecting good data, continually adjusting projections to reality, and thinking creatively and collaboratively about necessary changes.

More building consolidations may come. Secondary schools may have to be aligned to shrinking elementary enrollments. Projects may have to be scaled down or attendance lines redrawn.

And along the line, someone must be asking where all those disappearing students are going and why.