In letters dated April 24, ODE said it would seek to prevent those sponsors from overseeing any schools next year, including the ones they currently run, if they proceed despite problems with their applications for new schools. At least one of the sponsors, ERCO, said it would not move forward with two planned schools because of the state’s concerns. ERCO sponsors 22 schools, including City Day School in Dayton.
Shutting down existing charters because of the dispute over applications for new schools would impact multiple locations. The Warren County ESC currently sponsors four schools, including Imagine Woodbury Academy in Dayton and the statewide Greater Ohio Virtual School; and Kids Count sponsors eight schools, including Miami Valley Academies in West Carrollton, Summit Academy Transition High School in Dayton and General Chappie James Leadership Academy in Jefferson Twp.
The three sponsors each said they are being singled out unfairly.
“I agree with bringing in more accountability, but I complain that we have been picked out for an erroneous issue that has nothing to do with accountability,” Warren County ESC Superintendent Tom Isaacs said. “Anything ODE wants us to do as far as real accountability, we’ll be the first ones in line and be happy to comply. All of our schools are open and transparent. … Our audits are clean.”
Warren County ESC
Education department officials say Warren County ESC sought to authorize three schools with 175 students apiece — two in Cincinnati and one in Columbus — “without performing any basic market research to justify state funding for that many students.”
But Isaacs said market research was never stated as a requirement for opening new schools.
“I asked ODE for an exact list of everything required for the preliminary agreement (in March),” he said. “Read the email from (ODE’s) Paul Preston and tell me where it says we have to show market research. It’s not there. … They came up with something completely new to me (as a reason to reject us).”
Although ODE’s letter to charter school sponsors does not specify market research, spokesman John Charlton said accurate enrollment projections are crucial to determine how much state funding a charter school gets in its first few months.
“Last year several community schools drastically overstated their projected enrollment, which increased the loss of public dollars when these schools closed,” Charlton said. “It’s incumbent on sponsors to request that (research) to support the projected enrollment numbers. Without that research or documentation, it increases the risk to public funds if the school fails.”
The new ESC-sponsored schools would be dropout-recovery schools operated by Cambridge Education Group, which already runs five similar charter schools, including Marshall High School in Middletown.
Isaacs said Cambridge’s five existing schools have been open more than a decade and have average attendance of 196 students. But Charlton disputed that number, saying state data from April shows average attendance of 167.
Isaacs said the Cincinnati and Columbus markets are ripe for schools that specialize in working with students who have dropped out.
He said Cambridge and the ESC likely will resubmit the application with the requested market research, but it may be too late. Charlton said the schools in question will not be able to open this fall because the needed documents were not filed in time.
Increased scrutiny
Under Ohio law, a developer or operator that wants to run a charter school must sign an agreement with a state-approved sponsor that will monitor its academic and fiscal status. The sponsor gets up to 3 percent of the state funding the school receives, while the operator can receive more.
Last fall, 14 charter schools that were projected to open either closed within months or failed to open at all, leading to “a substantial loss of state dollars,” according to ODE. To avoid a repeat, the state this year is requiring more documentation as part of the application process.
Charlton defended the effort, saying McDonald’s wouldn’t open a new restaurant without detailed research confirming there were enough customers to support it. With public tax dollars at stake, a charter school operator and sponsor should do that much or more, he said.
In ODE’s letters to sponsors, it cited numerous problems with the applications.
ERCO was accused of trying to “recycle” a school — aiming to open Cincinnati Generation Academy on the same site, with same superintendent and the same governing authority that saw the previous school close for failing to meet academic requirements.
ERCO said it “respectfully disagrees” with ODE’s claims, but said it would not open the two proposed schools, meaning City Day School’s sponsorship should not be in jeopardy. City Day has lost more than $400,000 each of the past two years, according to its most recent state audit.
ODE also harshly criticized Kids Count of Dayton’s decision to sponsor the proposed Global Choice Academy in Columbus. That school’s developer, Abdalla Kassim, owes the state $65,000 for a charter school that closed last year shortly after opening. ODE officials said Kids Count, “does not appear to have performed even a basic Internet search” about the developer.
Kids Count Superintendent Ethel Washington-Harris said her group has not decided how to move forward yet, but is surprised that ODE would challenge their sponsorship despite what she called “a very detailed vetting process.”
“We did all of our research,” Harris said. “If you go to Google, or go to the ODE web site for the auditors who normally put out whether someone owes money, we haven’t found yet where there are dollars owed by that previous school or developer.”
Charlton pointed to several news stories detailing the sudden closure of Kassim’s First Time Learners Academy. He also provided a March 7 letter from ODE to the school’s leaders, informing them they owe the state $64,496.
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