Charter school a fraud, attorney general says

CINCINNATI (AP) — Ohio’s attorney general filed a lawsuit Friday seeking to shut down a Cincinnati charter school.

Marc Dann’s suit cited Harmony Community School for “abject academic failure, gross financial mismanagement, ethical lapses and what amounts to consumer fraud.”

The lawsuit is the fourth Dann has filed seeking closure of underperforming charter schools, the first in the Cincinnati area. Charter schools are private schools that receive public funding.

“The school used a slick marketing program to con parents into sending their children to what turned out to be an inferior school,” Dann told reporters after filing the suit in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court.

Harmony is rated in “academic emergency,” the state’s lowest ranking.

Dann charged that the school failed to properly educate students, even though it has received $31.9 million in taxpayer funding since 1998.

Deland McCullough, Harmony’s executive director, said in a statement that he could not address the allegations because the school had not yet been served with the lawsuit.

But McCullough said Dann should allow the legal and regulatory process to take place.

“The attorney general is jumping the gun and jumping the law in this action against Harmony Community School in his typical camera-grabbing stunt,” McCullough said, adding that Harmony has been cooperating with the state auditor’s office since April 2007.