Columbus City Schools, the largest district in Ohio, has long been riddled with chaos and dysfunction. Its failure to transport hundreds or thousands of city schoolchildren is just the latest chapter.
Just over a decade ago, the district was rocked by a data scrubbing scandal perpetrated by bureaucrats who tampered with student records to inflate district ratings. The ringleader, “data czar” Steve Tankovich, was jailed for his role in the scrubbing. Though avoiding prison, former superintendent Gene Harris hightailed it out shortly after the scandal broke and was found guilty of dereliction of duty.
The problems haven’t ended there. In 2019, the leader of the district-owned radio station falsified invoices and got probation. The district was painfully slow to reopen after the pandemic subsided and vaccines were available to educators, thus further aggravating student learning loss. Then Columbus went through a three-day teachers union strike that threw the start the 2022–23 school year into turmoil. This year, the school board has dithered on closing underenrolled buildings, something that would free up room in the budget to boost student supports.
On the academic side, the district continues to leave too many students woefully ill-prepared for life after high school. In 2022–23, just 35 percent of Columbus third graders read proficiently on their state test and 17 percent of high school students achieved proficiency on the algebra I exam. A staggering 58 percent of students were chronically absent (missing more than 10 percent of the school year). As for longer-term outcomes, a paltry 13 percent of its class of 2016 earned an associate degree or above by their mid-twenties. These results lag way behind the state average. For instance, only nineteen districts (out of roughly 600) posted lower third grade reading proficiency rates than Columbus and just eight were lower in algebra I.
It’s hard to imagine a district sinking any lower. But the ongoing fiasco in which Columbus City Schools is refusing to provide transportation proves the district is more than capable.
Under longstanding statute, Ohio districts are responsible, with narrow exceptions, for providing transportation to non-district students residing in their boundaries. This law helps ensure that all students receive busing no matter which school they choose to attend—district, charter, or private. The policy also promotes fairness to taxpaying families opting for other alternatives, while supporting student safety, reducing congestion on the roads, and ensuring that buses operate at full capacity.
The Columbus school board and superintendent have chosen to defy state law in a brazen attempt to deny transportation to students who attend public charter or private schools. As justification, they point to a provision that allows districts to deem students “impractical” to transport in certain circumstances. It’s true that other districts have wriggled out of transporting charter and private school students through this loophole, but none have abused this provision quite like Columbus. In fact, over the past couple years, the state has levied millions in fines against Columbus for failing to provide transportation to non-district students.
These fines have not deterred the district from continuing to refuse resident students transportation. At their August and September meetings, the school board declared a large number of Columbus charter and private school students “impractical.”[1] In doing so, they yanked transportation from families and students right as the new school year was beginning in clear violation of statute, which requires a declaration to be made at least thirty days prior to a school’s first day of instruction. It’s also a stunning display of callous disregard for Columbus families—most of whom are low-income and don’t have other transportation alternatives—and for fellow educators, who can’t teach students if they can’t make it to school.
In comments to the school board, a student attending Metro STEM school in Columbus voiced her safety concerns about having to use public transit instead of receiving yellow bus transportation. “I have lost my ability to feel safe making my way to school.” When learning her grandchildren were deemed “impractical,” one Columbus grandmother told the media, “I had to have a talk with my grandkids to let them know that they may not be able to go to their [charter] school anymore. That hit them hard. Everybody was crying. Grandmas are always supposed to have the answer, and this time I don't.”
Fortunately, this reprehensible disrespect for state law and the needs of parents and students is not going unnoticed by state officials. Earlier this week, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost sent the Columbus superintendent a sternly written cease-and-desist letter. He wrote, “It appears that the District has chosen to ignore its legal obligations to transport thousands of students, perhaps calculating that the District is better off paying future non-compliance fines than meeting its current legal obligations.” Attorney General Yost promised in the letter to bring the issue to the courts, and he has since announced that his office will indeed file suit.
With any luck, the attorney general’s actions will put an immediate end to district intransigence. If not, further disciplinary and accountability measures should be taken. Those might include initiating proceedings to revoke the license of the Columbus superintendent. Statute empowers the State Board of Education to revoke educator licenses for “conduct unbecoming” to the profession, which under state professional conduct code includes “committing any violation of state or federal laws, statutes or rules.” In addition, community, philanthropic, and business leaders should hold Columbus City Schools to account by promising to oppose future levy requests or withholding grant support until the district cleans up its act on transportation.
The citizens of Columbus deserve better than this. Leaders of public school systems should be upholding the law, not undermining it. They should be supporting parents and students, not bringing on hardship and anxiety. School officials, more than anyone, should be modelling for pupils and the community what good citizenship looks like—and that includes following the law, even when it’s difficult.
