What was once the state’s largest online charter school has been shut down since January – after saying it couldn’t pay the bill the state says it owes for over-counting students. But the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow is still trying to win at least one battle in its ongoing legal war with the state.
The state school board voted in June that ECOT should pay back $60 million in state funds based on a resolution “to accept the decision of the hearing officer in Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow’s appeal."
That hearing officer had determined that ECOT could only prove 40 percent of the enrollment it claimed for the 2015-16 school year. ECOT wants the Ohio Supreme Court to rule that the proceeding involving the hearing officer violated the Open Meetings Act. Two lower courts have ruled it did not.
ECOT is also waiting for a decision on its case argued before the high court in February that the state illegally changed its rules on counting students, though it’s been closed for almost four months.
