The Columbus school district told nearly 600 school employees yesterday that they must repay about $400,000 in bonuses they were awarded several years ago for school gains that weren't real. The bonuses for the 2010-11 school year weren't earned because schools qualified only after administrators manipulated student data, the district said.

The Columbus school district told nearly 600 school employees yesterday that they must repay about $400,000 in bonuses they were awarded several years ago for school gains that weren�t real.

The bonuses for the 2010-11 school year weren�t earned because schools qualified only after administrators manipulated student data, the district said.

Most of those employees � 417 of them � are teachers. Another 151 are other school workers, including secretaries, custodians and aides. But those employees haven�t been implicated in the data scandal that has dogged the district for more than two years.

Principals and assistant principals mostly were the ones withdrawing students so that their test scores and absences wouldn�t count on school report cards. The schools then showed improvement, and bonuses were awarded through a district reward program called �gainsharing.� It distributed between a few hundred and few thousand dollars to all workers in schools making steady academic progress.

The Ohio Department of Education recently recalculated report cards from the 2010-11 school year and determined that the improvement was fiction in many schools. Nine schools had received bonuses based on falsified data, so a committee of union leaders, Columbus City Schools officials and district legal staff members decided to recoup the money from all of the 592 employees in those schools. They have until June 2015 to pay.

�At the very beginning, everyone agreed that this was the right thing to do,� said Maria Stockard, the district�s chief of staff. �These are public dollars.�

Union leaders said they understand why the money has to be repaid. The teacher�s union leader took calls from members yesterday and said she empathizes with those who are struggling to understand.

�They�re very upset, and rightfully so. Their question is, �This is not my fault. I didn�t do anything wrong,�??� said Tracey D. Johnson, president of the Columbus Education Association, which represents the district�s teachers and other licensed school employees.

�We understand,� Johnson said. �This is not our fault. However, when it comes to using public dollars, we understand the right thing to do is return any public dollars that we didn�t earn.�

It�s too bad, Johnson said, that teachers and others are in a difficult financial position now � because of the decisions that some administrators � for whatever reason � made.�

There are 24 principals and assistant principals among those ordered to repay. It�s not unusual for high schools to have several assistant principals.

�We thought it was the right thing to return the public funds. Any bonuses should be definitely earned,� said Tim Donohue, who leads the Columbus Administrators Association. The association isn�t a union but represents the interests of the district�s administrators. Donohue is principal of Northland High School.

Some of the administrators told to repay were implicated in the data tampering and are gone now: Stanley Pyle, who was assistant principal at Marion-Franklin High School that year and changed hundreds of grades from failing to passing; Pamela Diggs, Marion-Franklin principal, who manipulated large amounts of student data and is being fired; former Mifflin High School Principal Jonathan Stevens, who left after the district moved to fire him for data tampering; and Amy Dennis, the former Whetstone principal accused of vast data changes.

Principals and assistant principals could have earned bonuses of as much as $3,000 through gainsharing that school year. Teachers could have earned as much as $745 and other school workers were eligible for as much as $375 if their schools met adequate yearly progress, a federal measure that tracks students� gains in math and reading.

A total of 27 schools got the bonuses that year.

The revelation that one-third of those schools received bonuses because they had altered data was a result of ongoing investigations into data tampering in the district.

After The Dispatchfirst reported about data changes in June 2012, state Auditor Dave Yost began investigating. Then the FBI did. The district�s data czar was convicted of a felony in July, and others could be charged. The Ohio Department of Education now is trying to sort out whether some educators should receive state-level discipline.

At least 121 of the employees told to repay have left the district. The former employees are being offered the chance to pay in a lump sum or monthly through June. The district said it would pursue collection from those who don�t respond and repay.

Yost�s spokeswoman said yesterday that the unearned bonuses could be considered misspending, and the auditor could issue �findings for recovery,� or an order to repay, in the district�s next fiscal audit if employees don�t cooperate.

Current employees also have a choice: Pay all at once or agree to biweekly payroll deductions through June, when the district�s fiscal year ends. That means a custodian, for example, who had received $375 for his school�s efforts would pay about $25 a week once the deductions begin next month.

Each employee is to receive a letter with repayment details by

Oct. 20.

Gainsharing bonuses for the 2011-12, 2012-13 and last school year will be made in the next few months. Those payments had been withheld until the state Education Department was done recalculating report cards and was certain that results were correct.

jsmithrichards@dispatch.com

@jsmithrichards

Bogus bonuses

Employees in nine Columbus schools will have to repay bonuses because administrators manipulated data for the 2010-11 school year. The schools:

� Africentric Early College High School

� Eastmoor Academy High School

� Marion-Franklin

High School

� Mifflin High School

� Whetstone High School

� Como Elementary School

� Parkmoor Elementary School

� West Mound

Elementary School

� Westgate Elementary School