Columbus Dispatch
Ohio tallies new grades for school districts that ‘scrubbed’ student data
By Jennifer Smith Richards
September 23, 2013

An investigation into how “scrubbing” affected the state report cards for schools in eight Ohio districts is nearly complete, Ohio Department of Education officials say.

When it’s done, the department will release recalculated district- and school-level report cards for the 2010-11 school year for Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Campbell in Mahoning County, Marion, Northridge in Montgomery County, Toledo and Winton Woods in Hamilton County.

Since February, the department has been examining student data in eight of the nine districts that the state auditor found had withdrawn students even if those students hadn’t actually left their schools. Such brief withdrawals, called “scrubbing,” meant that the students’ test scores and attendance data weren’t included in school report cards because, according to records, they hadn’t been enrolled for the entire school year.

Columbus City Schools was found to have improperly altered student data, too, but the auditor and the FBI are still investigating Columbus. The Education Department will begin its report-card-centered investigation of Columbus when the other investigations are complete.

“We’re going to update the report cards with accurate data,” said Beth Juillerat, who oversees data and information technology for the department and has managed the investigation. “The public might not see a difference. You might have a building (rating) change because the size is small, but the overall district (rating) would not change.”

It’s not known yet whether the report cards for the eight districts will change significantly. Each followed slightly different rules for when to withdraw children, and some of the districts scrubbed smaller numbers of students than others...

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