More than 11,500 Cincinnati Public School students are eligible to receive state-paid vouchers to attend private schools next year, but state officials say Cincinnati officials are hindering them from getting the word out.

The district is the only one in the state that has refused to provide to the state the addresses of students who are eligible for tuition vouchers.

This Saturday and next, the Ohio Department of Education is conducting free parent information sessions in Cincinnati to describe how students attending 27 Cincinnati schools that are in "academic watch" or "academic emergency" are eligible to receive Ohio EdChoice Scholarships to attend private schools.

State officials say they were prevented from sending out postcards with that information because Cincinnati Public Schools officials refuse to provide addresses of families in the eligible schools. The school district is the only major one in Ohio not providing that information, said J.C. Benton, an Ohio Education Department spokesman. A couple of smaller districts haven't provided the lists because of technical problems, he said.

"We're more concerned about parents not being notified," Benton said. "We're trying to implement the (EdChoice) law with the same intent that the legislature had when it put it into place. But we're disappointed that we've hit this roadblock."

Advocates of school choice say Cincinnati's district is keeping vital information about scholarships from mostly poor families who need the information most.

"This type of activity undermines the very principle of school choice," said Karen Tabor, spokesman for Ohio House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering.

"The families have a right to know about it," said Lisa Claytor, director of the Children's Scholarship Fund of Greater Cincinnati, a nonprofit that provides scholarships and is supported by pro-voucher organizations.

"Though CPS may choose to not aggressively market (vouchers), I can understand that," she said. "But to deny the Ohio Department of Education the right to notify (parents), to me, that crosses the line."

Cincinnati Public isn't crossing lines or trying to keep students from getting vouchers, district spokeswoman Janet Walsh said. It merely is trying to protect families' privacy, she said.

Creating and distributing a list of student names, addresses and phone numbers makes it a public record, she said, open to anyone.

The district changed its directory procedures this year so that addresses and phone numbers are no longer part of such directories, she said. Instead, only student names, activities and awards are on the list.

That is what the district sent to the education department, she said.

Eileen Cooper Reed, president of the Cincinnati school board, said the decision about restricting student directory information was made by school administration, not by the school board. She said she will bring the question up in a future school board meeting.

"I have mixed feelings about it," she said. "I think that CPS is generally not speaking in favor of things that could promote students leaving CPS."

Last year, the district gave the state names and addresses of eligible students, but concerns about identity theft, sexual predators and custody issues are changing what information parents want in public, Walsh said.

Zakia McKinney, executive director of Cincinnati Parents for Public Schools, lauds the district's actions, saying parents worry more about losing privacy than about getting information from the state. Besides, there are mailing lists with addresses but without names that the state can get from other sources, she said.

"Parents are opting for as many opportunities as possible for their information to be private," she said. "The state can reach us in other ways."

Under the EdChoice program, the state pays up to $4,250 for private-school tuition in grades K-8 and $5,000 for grades 9-12.

This year, many more students will be eligible than were last year, because in December, the law changed to include students in more schools.

Last year, a school needed to be in "academic emergency" for three years before its students were eligible for vouchers.

Now, students are eligible if their schools are in "academic watch" or "academic emergency" for at least two of the last three years.

That means that the number of schools with voucher-eligible students in Cincinnati grew from 13 in 2006-07 to at least 26 in the 2007-08 school year. A total of 524 Cincinnati Public students accepted vouchers for the 2006-07 school years; 64 of those children have returned to Cincinnati Public schools, Walsh said.