Tuesday, October 05, 1999

School developer was convicted

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Background checks were not made

BY DANA DiFILIPPO
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        An East End woman who applied to open a charter school in Cincinnati Public Schools was convicted in 1993 of stealing almost $450 from the East End Area Council.

        Ruth Coon's criminal record came as a surprise to district administrators and school board members, who don't require charter school applicants to undergo the same background checks the district's 6,550 employees face.

       

        “That's definitely an oversight,” school board member Arthur Hull said. “I'm concerned about the extent to which we examine not only their criminal backgrounds but also their professional backgrounds. They should meet the same standards all other CPS employees meet.”

        In 1992, Ms. Coon, then president of the East End Area Council, was accused of using about $800 to pay teen-agers to baby-sit, paint and clean up around her home. She was impeached as council president in September 1992.

        She was convicted in July 1993 of stealing $434 from the council after pleading no contest to a fourth-degree felony theft charge. Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Thomas Nurre gave her a 1¹/₂-year suspended sentence and put her on probation for three years.

Bookkeeping blamed
        Ms. Coon said the missing money was the result of sloppy bookkeeping, not theft. Her partners in the school proposal knew about the conviction, she said. She told them she wouldn't get involved in the school's finances to avoid any appearance of impropriety.

        Background checks, she added, should be required of charter school developers to weed out child abusers, substance abusers and anyone with convictions of violent crimes.

        Last summer, Ms. Coon applied, along with several neighbors and University of Cincinnati professors, to open the East End Community Heritage School to reverse skyrocketing dropout rates among East End youth.

        Board members, worried the East End proposal would steal students from existing neighborhood schools, tabled it last month and directed administrators to get details on its prospective enrollment. It's scheduled for another vote Oct. 11.

        John Rothwell, the district's charter-school manager, said he will recommend to school board members that they require charter-school applicants to undergo criminal background checks when they submit their proposals.

Better checks sought
        Those applicants now negotiating contracts with the school board or awaiting approval of their proposals also should be checked, Mr. Rothwell added.

        By state law, all prospective employees of a school district, from janitor to superintendent, are fingerprinted and undergo state or federal background checks.

        For those who have lived in Ohio at least five years, administrators check their records with the Ohio Bureau of Crimi nal Identification and Investigation. For those with shorter residencies, they do an FBI check.

        That law applies to charter schools, too. But district Counsel John Concannon noted that checks are required of people who will work in schools, and charter school developers wouldn't necessarily work in schools.

        Such ambiguities prove that the state's charter school law and district policies must be tightened, Cincinnati Federation of Teachers President Tom Mooney said.

        “This opens up the larger question of accountability,” Mr. Mooney said. “Charter schools should be held to the same standards as public school districts.”

       

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