A Franklin County judge has dealt a serious blow to the state's largest online charter school and siding with the Ohio Department of Education.
The judge says the state can to try to recover some of the more than $100 million it paid to the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow.
ECOT had sued to stop the state from going forward with its attendance audit - the e-school said that using student logins for attendance violated its contract with the state.
While both sides waited for the judge to decide, earlier this week the state released its audit findings, which showed ECOT had only around 6,300 full time students – not more than 15,000, as ECOT had claimed.
This could mean that ECOT might have to be forced to give back as much as $63 million, though the school has other avenues to appeal the decision.
