The Pittsburgh school board voted 7-2 last night to bring in a Nashville company to open a school for disruptive students, hoping to address what Superintendent Mark Roosevelt has called the district's most pressing problem.

Community Education Partners, headed by former Tennessee GOP chairman Randle Richardson, will open the 432-student school next fall. Mr. Roosevelt proposed the six-year contract with CEP, saying disruptive students are a districtwide impediment to academic improvement.

Mr. Roosevelt did not attend last night's legislative meeting. He and his wife, Dorothy, are in Guatemala to adopt a 7-month-old girl.

The district will pay CEP about $5.7 million a year to operate the school in the former Clayton Elementary building in Perry South. The district hopes to get a $2 million state grant each year to help cover the cost.

CEP will select a construction company and oversee about $3 million in renovations to the Clayton building. The district will reimburse the company for renovations, at 8 percent interest, over 15 years.

During CEP's six-year contract to operate the school, the district will pay $338,000 in renovation reimbursements annually. That figure is included in the $5.7 million annual contract cost.

Board members Mark Brentley Sr. and Jean Fink voted against the contract.

Among other concerns, Mr. Brentley said he opposed opening the school without soliciting the neighborhood's input and disapproved of giving the work to CEP without soliciting proposals from others in the alternative-education field. Mrs. Fink has expressed concern with CEP's performance in Dallas.

CEP, which operates schools in several states, has been criticized in some cities for poor performance or not providing enough data to let school officials assess the firm's effectiveness. Mr. Richardson has rejected those complaints.

Theresa Colaizzi and other school board members sharply questioned the proposed contract at last week's agenda review meeting. Ms. Colaizzi said negotiations with CEP in the past week had eased her concerns.

The district said its agreement with CEP is contingent on addressing collective bargaining concerns raised by the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers. CEP staff members will not be district employees; they could, however, be members of the union.

CEP will operate the school for students in grades six through 12. The company's goal will be to educate students for about 180 days before returning them to their regular schools.

Also last night, the board voted to name a playground at Colfax Accelerated Learning Academy in Squirrel Hill after the late Mayor Bob O'Connor.

The $175,000 Bob O'Connor Community Playground will be built in the fall, said Meryl Neiman, who is overseeing the project for the Colfax parent and teacher group. She said the group so far has raised $100,000, including $30,000 from a weekend fund-raiser and commitments from the Grable Foundation and the Jewish Healthcare Foundation.

The school board rejected a proposed environmental charter school, saying it lacked an adequate curriculum and would offer little in the way of new programs. Residents and Imagine Schools had joined forces to propose the Environmental Charter School at Frick Park. The group said it would meet Wednesday to decide whether to appeal the school board's decision to the state Charter School Appeal Board.