ECOT helps educate more than 15,000 students statewide using online only classrooms instead of the traditional brick and mortar schools.

This ad is bought and paid for by you, the taxpayer. The ad for charter e-school ECOT has the tagline, “Ohio Department of Education: Keep your word, keep ECOT open.”

It cost $190,000 to air it in the Columbus and Cleveland television markets two weeks ago, according to an ECOT spokesperson.

ECOT confirmed another ad running since last week cost an additional $90,000 to air in the Columbus television market.



Though ECOT said it only cost a few dollars in photocopying, taxpayers paid for dozens of fliers that were handed out at the Republican National Convention. It's a message ECOT said needs to be heard in spite of the cost.

At a July 15 special board meeting, ECOT’s board passed a resolution. During the meeting, a board member stated that “the board is resolving for expenditures related to administrators to make sure it can defend against some of the negative portrayals that have come forth in the media and strengthen the litigation position of the school."



ECOT helps educate more than 15,000 students statewide using online only classrooms instead of the traditional brick and mortar schools.



"I like it because it's very flexible. It's easy to concentrate. There’re not as many distractions like an actual classroom," ECOT high school student Mitchell Rousch said.



Like an actual classroom where teachers see students, the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) wants to see results. Funding for e-schools is based on Ohio Department of Education's guidelines that call for five hours of student instruction per day and 920 hours per year. The schools are audited every five years to make sure they're compliant.



ODE settled with another online charter school, Provost Academy, in March after alleging attendance records did not match with reality.

When it was time for ECOT's audit, state regulators asked for each student’s login and logout records.



ECOT told 10 Investigates that five hours of instruction means something different for every student. They disagree with the need to disclose that logout information so strongly that they sued for breach of contract.

“The whole purpose of having an e-school isn't necessarily to have you do five hours a day. Some students may log on for an hour and do all their homework in a week,” ECOT consultant Neil Clark said. "We'll do whatever is necessary to protect the integrity of the school.”

When asked if that could take a long time and cost a large amount of money, Clark replied, “It could – but it won't – because somebody will blink."



But before somebody blinks, somebody has to pay the bills. And that's all coming from your tax dollars.



"It is true that we're spending money on both sides of the equation, but we didn't start this fight. They started this fight by not honoring our contract," Clark said.



He said public schools use taxpayer dollars to hire lobbyists and run ads, that this is no different. They can spend the money however they feel is necessary, and told 10investigates "we feel the use of our reserves is legitimate and should not be questioned."



Democratic state senator Joe Schiavoni disagreed.

"We have to make sure that they're accountable that there's some transparency here and for ECOT to say, ‘we're going to take your money. These are taxpayer dollars but it's none of your business.’ I mean, that's offensive to me," he said. "If this audit comes back proportional to what the other schools come back at, they're going to owe $60 to 70 million back and they don't want to pay it.”



Republican State Representative Niraj Antani sides with ECOT in their struggle against the Ohio Department of Education.

Antani does say he opposes any school using public dollars for ad campaigns and explained.

"I don't necessarily think that's [an] appropriate use of public dollars, but I'm not going to say that charter schools should be different than public schools,” Rep. Antani said. “So, if we want to have a conversation about the true and appropriate use of public dollars in regards to lobbying and advertising, I'm completely open to that."



Republicans controlling the statehouse passed charter school oversight reform last year.

There's no pending bill to tackle schools spending public dollars on ad campaigns.

ECOT agreed to hand over boxes of documents the state requested for their audit after a judicial order Tuesday. Those documents are expected to be delivered by the end of this week.

The next meetings parents can attend to voice their concerns: