'Innovative' schools planned

All the programs might not be ready by next school year.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Even as Columbus school officials discuss closing buildings because of declining enrollment, they are planning to create five new "innovative" schools next year.
It's a way to deal with the increasing popularity of charter schools that have drawn 7,100 pupils from the school system so far and are projected to take an additional 5,000 in two years, Superintendent Gene Harris said.
Charter schools are publicly funded, privately run schools free from many state regulations.
"We have to get back our market share," she told a task force Wednesday that is developing a list of schools to close by next summer.
"We want to offer parents greater choice. We want to engage the community," Harris said.
Details such as costs, funding, locations and eligibility for enrollment are being worked out, she said.
Because of the district's financial condition, Harris couldn't guarantee that all the programs would be ready by next school year. A forecast approved Tuesday by the board of education projects that $50 million in cuts -- equal to about 1,000 jobs -- will be needed by the 2007-08 school year.
The cash for the new programs might come largely at the expense of older ones, she said.
Programs
The new programs include two single-gender middle schools, a science and technology middle school, a technology and global-studies school for sixth- through 12th-graders and a "full-service" elementary school designed to meet the social-service needs of students and their families.
Also planned are a variety of new programs at existing schools.
"This is a very positive step," said Mark Real, director of Kids-Ohio.org, a nonprofit organization that has studied the public schools' losses to charter schools.
"If they're doing this because they're trying to run us out of business, I think they'll find we're not so easily frightened," said Anita Nelam, founder of two Columbus single-gender charter schools.