Thursday, July 08, 1999
State tells charter school to return dissenter
Harmony cleared of most allegations
BY DANA DiFILIPPO
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Five months after a school board member accused Harmony Community School of money mismanagement, open-records violations and curricular improprieties, an Ohio Department of Education (ODE) investigation has cleared the Bond Hill charter school of the most serious allegations.
But investigators decided Harmony did improperly fire Louis Oates from its school board and illegally refused to give him public records he requested, according to a report The Cincinnati Enquirer obtained Wednesday.
ODE directed Harmony to inform Mr. Oates he still is a board member, immediately give him the documents he sought, and review and clarify its governance plan to avoid future problems.
Mr. Oates, who is assistant dean in the University of Cincinnati's College of Education, couldn't be reached.
Harmony Director David Nordyke said he plans to contest the directives about open records and Mr. Oates, whom Mr. Nordyke says was fired for ethical and business conflicts.
“I do appreciate the scrutiny,” he said. “We are expected to uphold standards, and we will. This was growthful, and we will look at this report critically.”
In a February complaint to ODE officials, Mr. Oates alleged that school board members don't vote, as they should, on expenditures, hirings and firings and other business. He claimed Mr. Nordyke wrongly makes many decisions without input or approval from school board members.
He also charged that the school has an atmosphere of “general mayhem.”
ODE investigators, who visited Harmony, reviewed school records, and interviewed administrators, staff, parents and students, said they found no substantiation for those allegations.
Critics had pointed to the investigation as proof that state lawmakers should tighten oversight of charter schools. Supporters countered that additional oversight would violate lawmakers' intent to keep the independent, public schools free of state and local mandates.
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