In January, Superintendent Dan Good suspended Principal Christopher Qualls with the intent to fire him, saying he tampered with attendance data during the 2010-11 school year. Yesterday, Good and the school board for Columbus City Schools gave Qualls a $3,000 bonus for achievement gains at Independence High School during the 2011-12 school year - a period that was never examined for data-scrubbing by the state auditor or the district's internal auditor.

In January, Superintendent Dan Good suspended Principal Christopher Qualls with the intent to fire him, saying he tampered with attendance data during the 2010-11 school year.

Yesterday, Good and the school board for Columbus City Schools gave Qualls a $3,000 bonus for achievement gains at Independence High School during the 2011-12 school year � a period that was never examined for data-scrubbing by the state auditor or the district�s internal auditor.

Counting kids out: Complete coverage of the Columbus schools data scandal

Qualls was one of 36 current and former district administrators who were awarded �gainsharing� bonuses tonight that totaled $93,000.

He is among five on the list of those getting bonuses who also are the subjects of subpoenas by the state Department of Education for district records, apparently because they are under a licensure investigation into data-rigging.

One of them, Barbara Preston, changed thousands of grades as an Independence High assistant principal under Qualls. Another, Hazel Womack, is now retired from her job as assistant principal at Linden-McKinley STEM Academy, and made large numbers of data changes there.

The other two who are subjects of subpoenas and receiving bonuses are Karla Case and Lenelle Taylor, both elementary-school principals during the bonus year.

Last night�s unanimous school board approval of the payments came less than two weeks after the district informed nearly 600 school employees that they must repay a total of $400,000 in bonuses that they were awarded several years ago for academic gains that weren�t real.

The false gains had been conjured up through manipulation of data by administrators like Qualls. He resigned this year rather than fight his termination.

�We are getting bonuses from 2010 taken back from us,� said Dan Thress, a special-education teacher at Whetstone High School. He complained to the school board at last night�s meeting that Qualls or anyone implicated in data-scrubbing shouldn�t get bonuses.

Thress must return the $670.50 bonus that he received for work in the 2010-11 school year by next week or face automatic payroll deductions over this school year. He said that has complicated his income taxes.

�You�re going to tell me in 2011 this wasn�t going on?� Thress said after the meeting. �Somebody that you have fired, now you�re going ahead and giving them a bonus?�

District General Counsel Larry Braverman said that, though auditors didn�t investigate data-rigging in the 2011-12 school year, the numbers were vetted by the state Department of Education when it recalculated report cards.

Those numbers show that Qualls is entitled to a bonus, Braverman said.

�The administrator-compensation plan provides for gainsharing,� Braverman said. �That gainsharing payment depends solely on whether the administrator or teacher�s building made AYP� � Adequate Yearly Progress, a measure of academic progress.

The gainsharing program rewards principals, teachers and nonteaching employees for demonstrating gains in graduation rates, student attendance, achievement test scores and other criteria. In past years, schools have split a pot of money that totaled nearly $1.9 million, with bonuses ranging from $75 for part-time workers to $3,000 for principals.

District officials couldn�t say tonight whether Qualls changed any data during the 2011-12 school year, nor whether Qualls is one of the employees being forced to repay a bonus from the previous year.

In other business last night, the school board authorized Treasurer Stan Bahorek to refinance up to $338 million in school-construction bonds issued over the past decade, to capitalize on current low interest rates.

Which bonds get refinanced will depend on market conditions, Bahorek said.

The district stands to save between $11 million and $13 million in interest over the next 12 years, Bahorek said.

bbush@dispatch.com