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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2007 > May > 31 > Entry
Sponsor may close school or fire board
By Scott Elliott
Staf Writer
City Day Community School will either close or its governing board will be fired by the end of next week, its sponsor said Wednesday.
After repeated problems with standardized testing and concerns about management of the charter school, the Cincinnati-based sponsor — Education Resource Consultants of Ohio — gave City Day’s governing board until this past Tuesday to fire Superintendent Roseda Goff.
But at a meeting Tuesday, the board refused. Board member Tom Clark said Goff was not to blame for what ERCO officials said was an effort to “compromise the results” of the Ohio Achievement Test given this month. Board member Yolanda Toney resigned when the board said Goff would stay.
In a May 21 letter, ERCO placed City Day on probation and ordered the governing board to fire Goff or it would exercise its power to close or take over the school. ERCO Assistant Director Aaron Kinnebrew said the sponsor would make good on that promise.
“We will be making a decision before June 6 on the fate of the school,” he said.
Clark said testing this month was monitored by ERCO, not Goff, and that teachers received training in test administration. Instead of firing Goff, the teacher who failed to follow procedures will be fired, he said.
“ERCO agreed to take responsibility for the test,” Clark said. “They had the test administered. Mrs. Goff was not even in the building.”
Dayton attorney Daniel Brown, who advised board members, said he told them City Day had a right to appeal any action by the sponsor.
The school, at 318 S. Main St., has been under scrutiny since February, when the Dayton Daily News reported that 44 questions on practice tests taken by City Day students just prior to the March 2006 state tests were identical or nearly the same as questions that appeared on the actual state exam.
The school, with about 170 students, jumped up two steps on the state’s rating scale from the lowest category of “academic emergency” to “continuous improvement” after huge gains in the percentage of students who passed the test.
Permalink | | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice, City Day Investigation
