Are Lucas County voters responsible for the oversight of 53 Ohio charter schools?

That question may be on voters’ minds after the latest development in the ongoing Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow debacle, which saw the Toledo-based sponsor of the shuttered online school agreeing to pay the state an $879,000 settlement from the millions it received in sponsorship fees.

A little-known aspect of the ECOT saga is the unique role local voters play in electing watchdogs who oversee the Educational Service Center of Lake Erie West, the public entity that green-lit ECOT in 2000 and allowed the embattled school to keep operating until it could no longer afford to once the state set out to recoup $80 million for inflated student enrollment figures provided to the state Department of Education.

Under state law, Lucas County voters elect the five-member board that oversees Lake Erie West, the state’s largest charter school sponsor. But what could be high-stakes political races — especially in the wake of ECOT’s failure and its large footprint across the state — have typically garnered little attention.

The Lake Erie West board is comprised of President Jeff Bunck, Vice President Michael Dansack, and board members Jared Lefevre, Joan Kuchcinski, and former Lucas County sheriff James Telb. Mr. Bunck and Mr. Lefevre will both be on the ballot in November, and so far do not have challengers. Mr. Telb’s term is also up, but it’s unclear whether he will seek another four years.

While the Department of Education and state auditor play a role in oversight, advocates for charter school accountability believe the onus falls equally on Lake Erie West and, by extension, its elected governing board.

“The folks who do the real oversight, the day-to-day oversight of the schools, isn’t the Department of Education, it’s the sponsor,” said Stephen Dyer, an education policy fellow with the liberal think tank Innovation Ohio. “If the ESC of Lake Erie West had been doing its jobs appropriately as designed, they certainly would have caught onto this quicker.”

ECOT was the largest school in the state at the time of its closure, enrolling 12,000 students who left brick-and-mortar classrooms for a fully online experience. The school was designed to serve students who couldn’t thrive in a traditional setting, but was criticized for a graduation rate that dipped below 40 percent and poor attendance.

The latter ultimately doomed the school when the state determined ECOT administrators couldn’t account for all the students it had claimed for taxpayer funding. In front of the Ohio Supreme Court, ECOT argued the Department of Education had suddenly changed the way it calculated enrollment based on the number of hours students spent logged into its system. The court ruled in favor of the state, upholding the millions it's still seeking for the overbilling of enrollment.

The public discourse around ECOT largely centers on its founder, Bill Lager, who contributed to the campaigns of Republicans and some Democrats in Ohio, and his for-profit company, Altair Learning Management. Little of the attention had been focused on Lake Erie West and its elected board until last month, when Attorney General Dave Yost announced the settlement.

Mr. Yost’s office and the Department of Education would not comment on Lake Erie West and ECOT, citing an ongoing investigation.

An official with Lake Erie West who would not talk on the record said the performance and attendance issues with ECOT were outside its purview as a sponsor.

Board member Mr. Lefevre, a West Toledo attorney and one of two members to respond to The Blade’s request for an interview, agreed.

“As a sponsor, we don’t operate the schools, and if we tried to do that for every school, I don’t think the system would work the way it’s intended to,” said Mr. Lefevre, who wasn’t on the board when it voted to pull its sponsorship of ECOT in 2018.

“I think that they were placed in a very difficult situation and did everything they possibly could to balance competing interests — making sure the kids who were enrolled in that school were receiving the education they were promised — while complying with their obligations as a school sponsor under Ohio law.”

In response to a list of emailed questions, Mr. Bunck wrote that he agreed with the unanimous vote he took part in to close ECOT after the state repayment rendered it insolvent, and offered a vague outline of Lake Erie West’s mandate.

“As a general point, our Community Schools Center is focused on monitoring the operation of our sponsored schools, offering technical assistance to help them improve where need, and providing oversight in conjunction with direct authorities such as the Auditor of State and the Ohio Department of Education,” wrote Mr. Bunck, a retired educator who’s been on the board for six years.

Established under state law, education service centers function as school boards to provide cost-sharing services for smaller districts, and some larger districts that choose to contract with them. As an ESC, they’re also among the nonprofit groups able to sponsor charter schools in Ohio, though many service centers don’t.

Formerly the Lucas County Board of Education, Lake Erie West was the first entity in the state to sponsor charter schools after former northwest Ohio Rep. Sally Perz authored the state’s charter school legislation in 1998. Lake Erie West currently sponsors more than 50 charter schools across Ohio including another e-school, Buckeye Online School for Success.

Charter schools can’t operate unless they have a contract with a sponsor that establishes the terms of their oversight and fees. ECOT’s contract with Lake Erie West allowed the educational service center to collect between $2 million and $3 million per year during its more than 15-year existence, Mr. Dyer said.

“There was a serious financial incentive to letting ECOT do whatever ECOT was doing,” he said, adding Lake Erie West would have been within its rights to get more involved once it became clear the school was struggling.

“They had every right to go in and check to make sure that they’ve actually got the kids they claim they’ve got,” Mr. Dyer said. “ECOT wasn’t exactly a high performing charter school. Asking questions about why that was didn’t seem to be done very much.”

The biggest question being asked now of Lake Erie West is what responsibility it might still bear in the failure of one of the nation’s largest charter schools in a case that has reverberated far beyond Ohio.

“It’s hard because when you’re overseeing a school, in general, if you’re assuming good intentions, you’re looking at all the kids and trying to make sure the school is serving the kids well,” said Chad Aldis, the vice president for Ohio policy and advocacy at the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and a charter school advocate who has been critical of ECOT.

“Even when they did have concerns, it would have put them in a really difficult position of trying to figure out what is in the best interest of everyone involved,” he said.

Before it folded, some parents pleaded with the board to keep ECOT open, arguing it offered the only option for their children to complete high school. The closure left many of them stranded.

Mr. Dyer said one of his foremost concerns going forward is whether Lake Erie West should be sponsoring so many charters.

“The ESC does have a role to play,” he said. “The problem is should they be doing charter school oversight, especially at this volume.”

First Published July 5, 2019, 9:59 p.m.