Cincinnati Public Schools Changes Hit Local Families Through Staffing and Building Shifts

Cincinnati Public Schools is eliminating more than 200 positions, including 109 teaching jobs, 12 social worker roles and eight counselor positions, to close a budget gap between $50 million and $90 million after federal COVID-19 dollars stopped flowing.

Those reductions land directly on classrooms and student support services that families in the district rely on each weekday. Parents who count on counselors for mental health check-ins or social workers for family assistance now face thinner resources at the start of the next school year.

Levy delay and restructuring plans

The CPS Board of Education postponed a vote on a proposed tax levy that would raise $48 million a year for ten years if placed on the November ballot. Without that revenue, the district must continue trimming staff and programs while it seeks other ways to stabilize operations. At the same meeting the board approved a restructuring plan that creates new middle and junior high schools by converting South Avondale and Pleasant Hill Academy into middle schools and launches a centralized enrollment system for the upcoming fall.

Families living near those two buildings will see their children shift from elementary or current configurations into the new middle-school model. The enrollment change means parents must navigate a single district-wide process instead of school-by-school registration, altering routines for hundreds of households this summer.

Facility updates and technology questions

Latonia Elementary School, closed after its gymnasium roof collapsed on New Year’s Day, reopened to students on January 13, 2026, once engineering firms cleared the main structure. The return of that building restores a neighborhood anchor for families in the Latonia area who had been reassigned elsewhere for several weeks.

Meanwhile the district continues weighing how to roll out laptops and artificial intelligence tools in classrooms while addressing privacy and data-security worries raised by unions and board members. Those decisions affect every student issued a device and every parent concerned about how student information is stored and used.

Residents can track further board action on the levy and enrollment system through upcoming public meetings listed on the district website. Checking the status of individual school assignments remains the next practical step for families whose children attend South Avondale, Pleasant Hill Academy or Latonia Elementary.