The Dayton Daily News has covered the statewide school attendance data investigation from the beginning.
When the state auditor’s office refused to identify the 100 schools being investigated, our reporters contacted 40 superintendents in our eight-county region to find out if they were part of the probe. Miami Valley readers knew which districts had auditors in their schools before the state identified them in Thursday’s interim audit.
Five school districts in Ohio — none in the Dayton area — show evidence of scrubbing attendance data, possibly to improve their report card ratings, according to an interim report released Thursday by state Auditor Dave Yost.
The audit found that Columbus, Marion, Cleveland Municipal, Toledo and Campbell City Schools in Mahoning County all improperly withdrew students from their enrollment. Columbus City Schools Superintendent Gene Harris unexpectedly announced her retirement after the probe began.
Seven of the nine Miami Valley districts that were among a sampling of 100 schools under review have been cleared of wrongdoing. The auditor is still analyzing data on schools in two of the districts — Hamilton and Northridge.
Springfield City Schools Superintendent David Estrop was thrilled Springfield High School came back as one of two area schools on a list of 21 identified as “clean schools” in the audit.
“I think it is important that the people of Springfield know our progress is real and that we are not gaming the system,” Estrop said.
Enrolled students’ test scores are used to calculate school building and district report cards by the state Department of Education.
“If you have children who are not faring well in the bottom quartile or bottom 10 percent and you remove those students, then mathematically your scores have to go up,” Yost said. He noted that auditors did not delve into motives that school administrators may have had for disenrolling students.
State auditors began the investigation with 100 schools in 47 districts throughout the state that were flagged by ODE data based on a high number of withdrawals and other factors. Other area districts that were part of the probe include Dayton Public, Trotwood-Madison, Jefferson Twp., Ansonia, Bradford and Mississinawa Valley.
“A quick glance at the report does not indicate that there were any schools in the Dayton area that we need to be particularly concerned about at this point, which is good news,” said state Sen. Peggy Lehner, R-Kettering, who chairs the Senate Education Committee.
Three schools in the Hamilton district and two in Northridge received an “indeterminate” status because the auditor has yet to finish analysis in those buildings.
Hamilton’s spokeswoman Joni Copas said auditors will be back in the district Monday.
Northridge Superintendent Dave Jackson said he believes his district was visited later than others. “We continue to be open to a review of our practices and will be working to make improvements if necessary,” he said.
Yost said he’ll issue another interim report by Oct. 23, which will detail analysis of the 15 buildings that received indeterminate status as well as a look at districts which have levies or bonds on the Nov. 6 ballot so that voters can be informed.
The audit also listed “schools with errors,” which included Ansonia High School, Bradford High School, Dayton’s Meadowdale High School, Jefferson Twp.’s Jefferson High School and two Trotwood-Madison elementary schools and a middle school.
Errors are defined as sporadic and might include “a lack of documentation, missing student files and incorrect” or unsubstantiated withdraw codes.
Lori Ward, superintendent of Dayton Public, which has 15,000 students, said auditors reviewed 126 files from two schools and found errors in nine files at one high school.
“We are reviewing the preliminary report and preparing our response to the state auditor,” she said.
Bradford Exempted Village Schools Superintendent Dave Warvel said he’s still confused why his rural, 650-student district on the Darke-Miami county line was flagged but noted it has a high mobility rate among students.
“We told them ‘Come on in, we have nothing to hide,’ “ he said of the auditors who spent two days there.
The probe could widen in the coming months. The state auditor is working with statisticians from Ohio State University to develop a model based on Ohio Department of Education data from 1998 to 2011 that will flag school buildings that may deserve a deeper look.
Yost said a final report is due sometime after Jan. 1.
“I’m not sure, frankly, that the quality of a school should be judged entirely upon whether or not they scrubbed some of their students,” Lehner said. “I think there are multiple indicators that can tell us how a school is doing. Hopefully, any parent or any voter would look at all those issues and not just this one.”
Lehner said she is inclined to wait until the final report is issued before coming up with legislative fixes to the attendance reporting system. Currently, it’s an honor system that assumes school districts are reporting accurate data.
“Obviously, the honor system is not adequate,” Lehner said.
Yost said Cleveland Municipal Schools’ records were unauditable and they aren’t following state law when they declare students truant.
Yost made preliminary recommendations: ODE should employ more cross-checks to catch inaccurate or fraudulent data; ODE should remove the ability for districts to see their projected report card scores when they verify the data submitted to the state; and districts should use computer software that tracks changes to student data.
Mississinawa Valley Junior/Senior High School was the other area school listed as “clean” in the audit, with no enrollment issues identified.
“Although we were confident with our numbers we reported, an audit is always intimidating,” Mississinawa Valley Superintendent Lisa Wendel said. “It was reassuring to know they found no discrepancies in our enrollment numbers.”
So far, the statewide probe has cost the auditor’s office $284,150 and 6,930 hours.
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