State Superintendent Richard Ross is under fire for the Ohio Department of Education's omission of online schools from key charter school evaluations. A records request from The Plain Dealer and other Ohio papers show zero text messages or emails to or from Ross about the evaluations because he rarely communicates that way, according to ODE staff. But here, he checks his phone for several minutes, sometimes typing with a stylus, at a state school board meeting this fall - all without making a call..
(Patrick O'Donnell/The Plain Dealer)
COLUMBUS, Ohio - State officials continue to deny public access to e-mail from State Superintendent Richard Ross that could clarify the extent of his involvement in this year's charter school data-rigging controversy.
They instead have contradicted each other.
One ODE spokesperson says Ross "does not use e-mail very often." Meanwhile, lawyers for the department aren't sharing Ross' e-mails to verify that claim, saying they are too "voluminous" to provide.
How voluminous? The department's not saying.
The Plain Dealer asked on Sept. 14 for at least a count of Ross' emails. The state has repeatedly promised to comply. So far, it has provided nothing and refuses to say when it will provide an answer.
Even state school board members complained at their November meeting, that the department won't provide information as they need it.
Board member
said she is not receiving information in a timely manner.
Board member
agreed.
"Public records requests are taking very long coming out of this department," Wagner said. "I don't think they should take that long."
He said citizens should receive timely updates on when they will receive public records they request, not wonder if "it's in some black hole and they're not going to get it."
Diane Lease, ODE's chief legal counsel, defended the legal department, which reviews most requests.
She told the board that her department gives weekly updates on the status of all records requests to those who made them.
That is false.
The department acknowledges receipt of records requests, then offers no update other than that staff is working on them.
The Columbus Dispatch joined The Plain Dealer in questioning Lease's claim after the meeting.
ODE spokesperson Kim Norris later said that statement was in error and that Lease would correct it for the board.
Asked Tuesday for copies of any such correction, ODE did not respond.
Lease and Norris have said that ODE staff is working on requests as fast as possible, in the order in which requests come in.
But Norris and ODE did not respond Tuesday to a request for how many staff members have been assigned to handle those requests, or whether staffing has been increased to meet public demand.
Records requests have supposedly ballooned after ODE violated state law this year in its handling of key charter school evaluations. Senior leaders decided to drop failing grades for online charter operations, evaluating the charter schools' sponsors as though the failures had never happened.
Those evaluations, and questions about how high in the organization the decision to drop the scores had been made, are what prompted The Plain Dealer's request for Ross' emails.
The ratings are the cornerstone of Gov. John Kasich's attempt to improve Ohio's $1 billion charter school industry. The effort has been ridiculed nationally for lack of effective oversight and control.
Ross placed blame for the score exclusions entirely on former school choice chief David Hansen.
Hansen, who is the husband of Kasich's presidential campaign manager, resigned in July.
The Plain Dealer and other Ohio newspapers requested all emails among Ross, Hansen and other ODE staff about those evaluations this summer. Approximately 100,000 pages of documents were provided, but they contained not a single note from Ross.
"The superintendent does not use e-mail very often," Norris told The Plain Dealer in early September to explain that absence.
To verify her claim, The Plain Dealer on Sept. 14 requested the total number of e-mails Ross sent in 2014 and 2015 - the period in which ODE staff was discussing the evaluations.
Some of Hansen's emails, obtained in the earlier records request, show that he was sharing data about the problems with online schools with Ross in spring of 2014. Hansen had data prepared to show Ross about the academic performance of charter schools, when counting online schools and when excluding them.
The Plain Dealer also asked, separately, for copies of all of Ross' emails.
ODE lawyer Immy Singh denied that request Oct. 6, saying it was "overly broad" because it asked for a "duplication of all records of a particular type."
Singh then cited court rulings stating that Ohio public records law does not require "complete duplication of voluminous files."
The Plain Dealer responded on Oct. 10 that the first part of the request does not seek duplication and that, based on Norris' comments about the superintendent not using email very often, the files should not be "voluminous."
That was seven weeks ago. Asked again for an update Monday and Tuesday, Norris would say only, ""We are working on your public records request and we expect to fully comply with the request."