Miami Valley school districts that have not been contacted by the
state auditor’s office in connection with the investigation
Montgomery County
Brookville
Centerville
Huber Heights
Kettering
Mad River
Miamisburg
New Lebanon
Northmont
Oakwood
Valley View
Vandalia-Butler
West Carrollton
DECA Prep (charter school)
Richard Allen Schools (charter school)
* Pathway School of Discovery (charter school) did not respond to the newspaper’s request for information.
Greene County
Beavercreek
Bellbrook-Sugarcreek
Cedar Cliff
Fairborn
Greeneview
Xenia
Yellow Springs
Miami County
Piqua
Tipp City
Troy
Warren County
Lebanon
Little Miami
Springboro
Butler County
Edgewood
Fairfield
Lakota
Middletown
Preble County
Eaton
Champaign County
Urbana
Source: School superintendents from each district
State auditors are examining student attendance records in six Miami Valley school districts as part of a statewide probe into possible data tampering to improve report card performance, a Dayton Daily News investigation has found.
Administrators for Dayton, Springfield, Hamilton, Trotwood-Madison, Northridge and Jefferson Twp. school districts confirmed the audits.
The Daily News contacted 40 superintendents in an eight-county region to find out if they are part of the investigation, which has delayed the release of the state report cards from Aug. 29 until later this week. The superintendent for Pathway School of Discovery charter school in Dayton was the only one who did not respond to the newspaper’s questions.
Officials with the state auditor’s office and Ohio Department of Education have refused to release specific details about the investigation, including which schools are being examined.
The auditor’s office began the investigation with a sampling of 100 schools throughout the state that were flagged by ODE data based on a high number of withdrawals and other factors.
Dayton Public Schools spokeswoman Jill Moberley confirmed auditors looked at data from two schools in the district, the largest in the region with about 15,000 students.
Moberley would not answer other questions about the audit, including identifying the schools, because she said district officials want to wait until the audit is finalized. Superintendent Lori Ward declined a request for an interview.
Hamilton City Schools spokeswoman Joni Copas said they had “four auditors in our district from Sept. 4 to Sept. 18 working with our EMIS (Educational Management Information System) director and coordinator pulling student records.”
Superintendents for Springfield City Schools and Trotwood-Madison City Schools said they were not surprised they were contacted by state auditors because of their high percentage of transient students.
“We’re big, we’re urban and we’ve posted some gains” on the state report card, Springfield Superintendent David Estrop said.
In Springfield, auditors were in the district on Aug. 30-31 and Sept. 4 and requested files for 146 students who attended Springfield High School during the 2010-11 school year, he said.
Estrop, superintendent for three years, stressed he knows of no effort on “our part to load in inaccurate information. I’m not saying there isn’t an error in there because we make them but, on the other hand, we certainly didn’t go out to defraud or in any way paint a less than an accurate picture.”
The state report card is the sole barometer that evaluates the performance of every school district and charter school in Ohio. Many parents use the ratings to measure the quality of their children’s education.
That puts enormous pressure on school leaders, Estrop said.
“The pressure some are feeling, they feel compelled to use every possible advantage to try to represent themselves as well as they can,” he said.
State auditors may expand the investigation beyond the first 100 schools to determine which schools improperly altered student attendance data to make their state report cards look better.
A yearlong Ohio Department of Education investigation found in July the Lockland Local Schools near Cincinnati falsely reported withdrawing 36 students during the school year in an effort to boost its annual report card rating.
The investigation was broadened after Columbus and Toledo city school districts also were publicly identified for questionable practices, with the focus on test scores that didn’t count toward the districts’ state report cards because some students were struck from the rolls and re-enrolled later.
Trotwood-Madison Superintendent Kevin Bell said auditors were in his district on Sept. 6, 7 and 10. They were interested in examining records for about 200 students who had attended Madison Park and Westbrooke Village elementary schools and the middle school during the 2010-11 school year. Bell said it was in connection with the Ohio Achievement Assessments given to students in third- through eighth-grade in the spring.
Bell said his district has a high number of student withdrawals but added that in Trotwood, it’s due to a transient population and the weak economy.
“Where they saw some issues from Lockland, where they electronically withdrew a kid that never left their district, that wasn’t the case (here),” Bell said. “I was never that worried about (the audit) because I knew when our kids are gone, they’re gone.”
Trotwood-Madison has lost about 1,000 students in the past decade, according to school leaders in the district dotted with many foreclosed homes.
Falsely reporting attendance data is a violation of state and federal law, according to the auditor’s office.
Ohio Auditor Dave Yost sent an email to all school superintendents on Aug. 15 in which he said he was “confident most districts have been doing the right thing, in the right way. Others may have acted improperly, but with the belief that their practices were acceptable. It seems likely that still others acted deliberately.”
In that email, Yost gave superintendents a chance to voluntarily self-report any improper data reporting by Aug. 20.
“If your district has or may have done something wrong in reporting data, whether you knew or did not know it was wrong, we need you to step forward and report the truth,” Yost wrote. “Voluntary self-reporting demonstrates good intentions and will help separate those who acted in good faith from those who acted with fraudulent intent.”
Auditor’s office spokeswoman Carrie Bartunek said 34 superintendents replied to that email. She noted, however, the majority indicated they believed their districts’ data reporting was handled properly but they sought reassurance what they did was correct.
Northridge Local Schools Superintendent David Jackson said he was among them.
“I indicated that while we believe strongly that we are following the EMIS guidelines for reporting student data accurately, we are open to a review of our data and to any guidelines or suggestions that would further shape our practice.”
As a result of his response, and because of what Jackson called the “transient nature of our student population,” an auditor came to the district to review student records.
Jackson, like other superintendents, said he has not heard anything yet by way of findings and was not given a timeline for a response.
“The auditor’s visit, I believe, is another opportunity for us to insure that we are operating with integrity and that we are maintaining and reporting all of our data accurately,” Jackson said.
Jefferson Twp. Local Schools Superintendent Richard Gates said his district also has been visited by someone from the auditor’s office. “We have not discussed anything with them regarding their investigation.”
Gates’ district is seeking voter approval on Nov. 6 of an additional bond issue and tax levy that would generate funding for a proposed $17 million preK-12 school. Gates said he is not concerned about the impact the statewide probe could have on the ballot issue.
Bartunek has said it’s not clear whether the examination will be finished before the election when many school districts in Ohio have requests on the ballot seeking new money.
“We are hoping to get a good portion finished in the fall before the levies,” she said.
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