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Ohio School Fears Cuts Will Rewrite Its Success Story

DAYTON, Ohio, May 30 — The 32 students who graduated from the Dayton Early College Academy on Wednesday evening were mostly from low-income families. Few of their parents went to college.

But every member of the graduating class, the school’s first, will attend college in the fall on the strength of their academic achievements and $2 million in scholarship offers, a remarkable success story in a school district plagued by budget shortfalls and challenges endemic to urban schools.

That success, however, may not be enough to save the experimental public high school. Voters rejected a school tax levy on May 8, forcing the school district to cut $30 million from its budget. That could result in the academy’s reverting to a more traditional model.

With more than 200 layoffs planned in the district, many of the teachers who have developed the academy’s curriculum through trial and error are likely to lose their jobs to teachers with more experience because the teachers’ union requires layoffs to be made according to seniority. Some positions would probably be eliminated.

“For us to lose teachers would be catastrophic,” said Judy Hennessey, who resigned as superintendent of the affluent school district in nearby Oakwood to become principal of the academy, which has 225 students who are required to begin taking college-level courses by their junior or senior year.

The school, which is in an office building owned by the University of Dayton, was founded and operated in part with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the KnowledgeWorks Foundation, based in Cincinnati.

Some supporters want to convert the academy into a charter school, which would free it from dealing with the teachers’ union and help it retain its staff. The student-teacher ratio at the academy is 14 to 1, compared with the district average of 33 to 1, Ms. Hennessey said.

Representative Jon Husted, a Republican who is speaker of the Ohio House and whose district includes the academy, said he was willing to sponsor a bill allowing it to become a charter school if the teachers’ union does not exempt the academy from layoffs by seniority.

“I want them to keep this as part of the public system,” Mr. Husted said, “but if they’re unwilling to do that, I think preserving the school is more important.”

Patricia Lynch, the president of the teachers’ union, was on the planning committee that formed the school but said it could not be exempt from cuts. “There are going to be setbacks in every school,” Ms. Lynch said.

Thomas J. Lasley II, the dean of the School of Education at the University of Dayton and a founder of the academy, said the school and others like it were desperately needed. “If you’re going to educate urban kids, you’re going to need niche places,” Dr. Lasley said. “We can’t be losing this much intellectual capital and expect cities like Dayton to survive too long.”

Away from the financing tug of war, the graduating students were ebullient.

Jerusha Clark, 18, graduated with a diploma and an associate’s degree in liberal arts. She has enrolled at Mars Hill College near Asheville, N.C., majoring in pre-med biology. Kasandra Maxwell, 18, will study engineering at the University of Dayton.

Other students, like Shaina Moore, a 16-year-old sophomore, hope the school continues untouched next year. Ms. Moore’s mother died in 1999, and her grandmother, who became her guardian, suffered from alcohol abuse, she said. Ms. Moore went into foster care and missed 100 school days in fifth grade in a downward spiral she worried might never end.

With the help of her great-aunt and great-uncle, who became her guardians in 2001, she found her footing and has since blossomed at the academy. “I started out struggling my first year,” she said. “Now that I’m acquainted, I feel like it’s my second home.”

Ms. Mooreloves the language arts, she said, especially persuasive writing. She hopes to use her powers of persuasion as a probation officer to help people set their lives straight.

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