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Reporting on the state of education in your community and across the country.

Auditor Says Half of Student Population at Dayton Charter School Was “Fraudulent”

KRISTIE WELLS / FLICKR

A special audit has found that a now-closed Ohio charter school padded its rolls by nearly half, bringing it more than a million dollars in state funds it shouldn’t have gotten.State Auditor David Yost said that General Chappie James Leadership Academy near Dayton reported having 459 students in attendance, but only 239 students could be documented.“If you have three percent or five percent of your student population doesn’t have documentation, that might be bad record keeping,” said Yost. “When nearly half of your kids don’t have a file, there’s no documentation, that’s not a mistake, that’s not bad bookkeeping – that’s fraud.”Kids Count of Dayton was the school’s sponsor.That group had problems a few years ago with misspent funds and potential conflicts in oversight at another now-closed charter school.Yost said he’s turned the audit over to prosecutors and the Ohio Attorney General.