school attendance Doctored data has Yost calling for reforms

Staff report

COLUMBUS

Republican state Auditor Dave Yost called on lawmakers and education officials to change the way they determine school attendance for state funding and increase oversight of districts after nine were caught manipulating enrollment numbers.

Schools in Canton, Cincinnati and Montgomery and Hamilton counties were the latest to be added to the “scrubbers” list after an extensive review by Yost’s office of district-attendance records.

In October, Yost identified five other districts that improperly withdrew students to improve the scores they reported to the state, including Campbell in Mahoning County and others in Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo and Marion.

Seventy other schools had errors in their attendance documents, but auditors did not believe there was evidence of scrubbing.

“The good news is that most of the school districts in Ohio play by the rules; they’re clean, they’re doing it right,” Yost said. “I’ve heard it protested that these rules are ambiguous and they’re hard to understand and people are either confused or didn’t know what to do. That doesn’t wash with me because we had such good compliance throughout the vast majority. ... Everybody else was able to do it, it must be clear enough to be able to comply.”

He added, “My conclusion is that they knew better, and for whatever their own reasons were, they chose not to comply.”

Of the nine, Yost said he expects criminal charges to be filed against Columbus schools officials. He declined to speculate on potential legal action against the other schools, though he said he forwarded the audit results to federal investigators.

Yost’s office headed an investigation involving more than 260 auditors, 331 individual schools in 137 different districts, at a total cost of $443,000.

Schools are allowed to withdraw students for a number of reasons, including transferring to another district or private school, being expelled or opting to home school.

Auditors focused on students withdrawn for truancy or nonattendance without proper documentation and court involvement.

In Mahoning County, for example, about 40 students at Memorial High and Campbell Middle schools did not have supporting documentation in student files about their withdrawals and/or withdrawals were made retroactively at the end of the school year after test scores were determined, Yost’s office reported in October.

Auditors identified 11 Campbell high-school and 28 middle-school students that didn’t have sufficient documentation to support the reasons noted by the district in the student’s withdrawal, Yost’s final report said.

Campbell Superintendent Tom Robey said Monday that the district is still conducting an internal investigation that he expects to conclude soon. The district was awaiting the final report and recommendations from the auditor’s office, he said.

“From our investigation, we do not believe that anybody did this with purpose of bad intent,” the superintendent said.

But the district already has implemented some changes as a result of Yost’s October findings to provide checks and balances, Robey said.

Multiple signatures are required when a student is withdrawn from school, ensuring that no one person may do it.

“We’ve provided additional training with staff to let them know what’s expected,” he said.

The district formed an internal audit committee too.

“We’ve done a number of things and we’re still considering a number of things,” Robey said.