Ohio schools could face criminal charges - 13abc.com Toledo (OH) News, Weather and Sports

 State school Superintendent Stan Heffner says the investigation of changes made to student attendance data in several districts could lead to criminal charges.

The Department of Education says the Lockland district near Cincinnati filed false data.

The Columbus and Toledo districts are also under investigation for similar filings.

Should the scores of special education students be calculated with overall student test scores?

The issue is being raised as TPS finds itself in the center of a state investigation. Investigators are looking to see if principals manipulated attendance to boost state test scores.

 A special education advocate and TPS mom weighs in. Sandra Wiley Steward's son Tyler, has Down Syndrome.  High School, but his mother did not want him to take the state test.
Wiley says,  "I believe in alternative assessments I was not going to have him take the regular testing and set him up for failure...I knew he could not do it and it wasn't fair to him."

Steward believes in inclusion for all students but believes special education students should be tested based on their own benchmarks.

"Many of these kids are two and three years behind they've been put in a regular education classroom I think for the most part the district has stepped up to the plate and they've accommodated and modified to the best of their ability but they can't accommodate or modify these tests."

That may be why some principals in Ohio may have modified attendance records,to exclude the scores of special education students.

 We spoke with the spokesperson for ODE to get the state's take on excluding special education students from the standard tests.

A spokesperson for ODE tells 13 ABC that under federal law, all students are to take annual state assessments and these scores are included in building and district results. federal law does permit students with significant cognitive disabilities to be given an alternative assessment, but districts can use passing scores on those tests from no more than 1 percent of their enrollment.  ode expects all districts to follow this well-known element of federal education law.

Meanwhile TPS finds itself at the center of an investigation because they had to re-adjust the attendance records they submitted to the state.

If ODE's investigation finds that TPS leaders did tweak the attendance to boost scores, the district grade could slide on the state report card. Last year the district was in continuous improvement. The principals involved could also get their educator licence revoked.  Today the state announced it may file criminal charges against the people involved in the Cincinnati attendance scandal.