ECOT is trying to block the State Board of Education from voting June 12 on whether to force the online school to repay the state $60 million for inflated attendance figures.

The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow recently filed an injunction with the Franklin County Court of Appeals to prevent state board action until appeals of the school’s legal case are exhausted.

ECOT sued the Ohio Department of Education after the agency altered its method last year for verifying online school enrollment, now relying on computer log-in durations and off-line documentation to determine whether a student meets the minimum 920 hours of “learning opportunities” required by the state.

The state’s review of ECOT, Ohio’s largest charter school, found that many students were not meeting those minimum hours for the 2015-16 school year.

ECOT has argued the state’s actions amounted to an illegal, retroactive rule change that also violated a signed 2003 funding agreement it made with the state. A trial court ruled in favor of the education department, and the Court of Appeals has been deliberating on the case for weeks. Regardless of the ruling, the case is likely headed to the Ohio Supreme Court.

ECOT also appealed to the state, where hearing officer Lawrence Pratt recommended three weeks ago that the school repay $60 million of roughly $108 million in state funding — a move known as a claw back. The intent of the law, he said, is not to “teach to what could be the equivalent of an empty classroom.”

The Board of Education intends to make a final determination on the recommendation at its June 12 meeting. The board can accept, reject or modify the recommendation.

The court, ECOT argued, should delay the board “from taking such a drastic step prior to a final determination of the legality of the very standard upon which the contemplated claw back is based.”

“If (the department) begins clawing back funds — even, as it has suggested, over a period of time — ECOT will be sent into a death spiral,” ECOT attorney Marion Little wrote. “On the other hand, (the department) will suffer no harm if it is simply forced to wait a little longer in its efforts to claw back funds.”

The department has until Wednesday evening to file its response to the injunction. Meanwhile, the education department is currently conducting a new ECOT attendance audit for the 2016-17 school year.

jsiegel@dispatch.com

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