Ohio Supreme Court ruling could cost defunct charter school millions

The now-closed COLUMBUS —

Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow suffered a legal blow Wednesday when the Ohio Supreme Court ruled 4-2 that the state can determine funding for online schools based on how much time students are logged on for learning.

The decision bolsters the state’s effort to recover millions of dollars given to ECOT.

ECOT suspended operations Jan. 19 after it lost support from its sponsor, Educational Service Center of Lake Erie West, and it auctioned off its assets in May.

The court rejected claims by ECOT that Ohio law limits the state’s authority to use a funding formula based on the number of hours of “learning opportunities” offered by an e-school. Instead, the court determined that the state can require the e-school to provide additional data on student participation to substantiate that school’s funding.

ECOT challenged state efforts to calculate funding based on student participation data but the online school lost at the trial court, appeals court and now supreme court levels.

ECOT had been Ohio’s largest online charter school, claiming enrollment of more than 15,000 students, though state investigators concluded the true enrollment was about 60 percent fewer. In 2016, ECOT received more than $106 million in public funding from the state.

More than 1,000 students from the Miami Valley were listed as enrolled at ECOT in 2016-17, including more than 600 who