Foundation plans public boarding school for at-risk Cincinnati kids

CINCINNATI - The documentary  "Waiting for Superman" explores a crisis in public education through the personal stories of five children. This moving film is already creating a nationwide conversation about the American education system and how to fix it.

The Farmer Family Foundation brought  leaders together for a local conversation and special showing of the film at the Esquire Theater in Clifton.

"This is a national crisis and I hope people in Cincinnati would see this movie and say, OK, it's time to do something in Cincinnati," Cincinnati State President Dr. O'dell Owens said.

Former Cintas CEO Richard Farmer is doing something. He says his foundation decided 10 years ago that one of its goals was to help underprivileged kids get a good education.

After a long search, he found the model he was looking for in Washington, D.C.

Farmer says when he saw the SEED school in Washington, he decided that's what he wanted to do, build a SEED school.

SEED stands for "Schools for Educational Evolution and Development." The two existing schools, in Washington and Baltimore, are public, college-prep boarding schools for low-income, at-risk kids.  SEED provides students an environment  24 hours a day, five days a week, where they learn to succeed.

Ohio SEED Director Brian Neal faces two challenges: getting state legislation passed to operate a public boarding school and finding a place to build the school near the families it will serve.

He's looking for 15 acres of space, for an academic facility, plus ballfields so kids have room to run and plan. The campus also needs dormitories, which are key to the SEED concept.

It's a huge undertaking with a huge potential payoff in the lives of children and families.

"Think about the impact on this community, if we could only graduate 100 of these kids a year, and 98 go to college, come back to Cincinnati, lead productive lives," Farmer said. "What a role model for their neighborhoods!"

In fact, SEED has demonstrated impressive success: 96 percent of SEED graduates, all from inner-city backgrounds, have been accepted to college.

The Farmer Foundation hopes to have the school built and ready for students by the fall of 2012.