District officials recognized that making students repeat the same classes with the same teachers wouldn't address the reasons they had failed in the first place. So they set up a special school for 323 pupils in Signal Hill, at a former GTE maintenance yard at 20th Street and Cherry Avenue, with support services and an average class size of 20 students per teacher. In September, the American Federation of Teachers released a study that examined promotion policies in 85 school districts around the country. In Cincinnati, pupils are placed in smaller classes that are tailored to bring them up to grade level. The campus, rows of brown bungalows across asphalt, has a no-frills, military feel.
Pupils chat and eat lunch at picnic tables or on sun-splashed bleachers.
To give kids more personal attention, the 25-member teaching staff has been split into five teams. Each team shares the same pupils. Kids have the same classmates all day. A social worker and two social worker interns have been assigned to the school. The nurse runs a support group for former smokers.