|
Marion Star
Marion
awaits impact of
state probe
ODE: Districts on
'borderline' might see changes in indicator for 2010-2011
by John Jarvis
Sep. 23, 2013
MARION — As the Ohio
Department of Education nears completion of its investigation of how
allegedly improper attendance reporting affected state report cards
for eight Ohio school districts, Marion City Schools Superintendent
Gary Barber looks forward to “getting this behind us.”
“I think the board, the
administration and everyone has done everything they could to
cooperate,” Barber said. “We have a plan, a policy in place
moving forward to ensure we’re going to do the right thing. Again,
when you look at this situation compared to the other schools that
have drawn attention, it’s a small group of studentsfor a short
period of time. There was no orchestrated plan, no strategy to
increase indicators. I think that’s important to understand.”
Ohio Auditor Dave Yost
initiated the investigation in 2012. He accused five districts of
using “questionable attendance policies and practices” that the
auditor’s office said indicated they were “at a higher risk for
scrubbing data to improve their local report cards.” Yost’s
office determined 47 students transferred from Marion City Schools to
Marion City Digital Academy during the 2010-2011 academic year with
no parent or guardian initiation or approval forms included in the
district’s student files.
James Barney, Marion City
Schools superintendent at the time the Education Department started
the investigation, in 2012 said students were transferred because
they had missed four days within a quarter and were at risk of
failing. He said the students were enrolled in a credit recovery
program through the digital academy to aid them in getting credit and
working toward graduating.
Barney said the transfer
was done only once and not repeated because it wasn’t successful.
He said no intent existed to “scrub data...
Read the rest of the
article at the Marion Star
|
