The Ohio Department of Education reports they have completed investigations into eight school districts identified by the Auditor of State as having “evidence of scrubbing” in its 2010-2011 attendance data and confirmed that seven of those districts did improperly report its Education Management Information System (EMIS) data during the 2010-2011 school year. The one exception was the Marion City School District.
While the local district has been cleared of data scrubbing, their case will still be reviewed by the office for professional conduct.
“Misreporting of attendance data or ‘scrubbing’ jeopardizes the entire accountability system in Ohio and will not be tolerated,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Richard A. Ross said. “These actions will be investigated and may result in professional conduct sanctions up to and including suspension or revocation of licensure.”
After reviewing more than 8,500 student records, the department of education’s investigation led to significant concerns regarding the inaccurate reporting of data.
“We are committed to collecting accurate data and will require districts to submit corrective action plans to address these concerns,” said Dr. Ross. “We also determined that approximately 50 percent of the records reviewed indicated the improper withdrawal of students from schools and should be included in the district and school report card calculations.”
The department concluded that, despite concerns with questionable practices, Marion City School District did accurately report its EMIS data during the 2010-2011 school year. For this reason, the department’s data accuracy investigation into Marion City School District is now closed, but the district will be referred to the professional conduct office for further review.
“We are excited that the data scrubbing issue is behind us,” Marion City Schools Superintendent Gary Barber said. “We will work closely with the Ohio Department of Education in the investigation and hope we have a conclusion in the near future.”
Although the investigation found Canton City School District used the wrong withdrawal code for 29 of the 34 records examined, the department does not believe the error warrants a referral to the Office of Professional Conduct. However, since incorrect information was submitted Canton is required to submit a corrective action plan. The investigation into Canton City School District is now closed.
Report cards for the 2010-2011 school year will be recalculated and reissued for the six districts with the improperly withdrawn students added back into the calculations. Those districts include:
- Campbell City School District
- Cincinnati Public School District
- Cleveland Metropolitan School District
- Northridge Local School District
- Toledo Public School District
- Winton Woods City School District
The department says the six districts listed above failed to demonstrate that they made a good faith effort to properly report attendance data as required by law. Furthermore, the misreporting of attendance data may have wrongfully benefitted the 2010-2011 district and school building report cards. Misrepresenting student enrollment status, and thus, reporting inaccurate data to the EMIS, is a violation of Ohio law.
After the State Auditor’s referral last February, the department reviewed all of the data and documents secured and utilized by the Auditor for the statewide attendance audit. The department then reviewed student records from each district and conducted a statewide analysis to determine whether these students were reported by another public district or community school as enrolled.
The department gave each district an opportunity to provide documentation to prove the students in question had been properly reported to EMIS as withdrawn. Based on each districts’ responses, and the comprehensive statewide analysis of enrollment data, the department determined that more than half of the students whose records were reviewed were improperly reported as withdrawn during the 2010-2011 school year.
These improper submissions could result in inflated accountability ratings as these assessment results rolled up to the state for accountability purposes when they should have been included in the district and school report card accountability results.
In addition to reissuing 2010-2011 report cards, the department will investigate districts’ 2011-2012 school year EMIS data to determine whether improper reporting of student withdrawals occurred.
Because of the ongoing data accuracy investigations and potential professional conduct investigations, each district is now under a legal duty to preserve all evidence, whether printed or electronic, that is or might become relevant to this matter, including information regarding student withdrawals, data changes made to student records, who made any data changes, and district policies and practices for data changes and withdrawals.
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