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School Data Scrubbing Scandal Causes Jump In State Discipline Referrals

More than 9,000 teachers and other school employees were recommended for discipline by the state Department of Education last year. Statehouse Correspondent Karen Kasler reports.

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Referrals for discipline jumped by more than 850 to a record high number last year, but that's only a 10% increase over 2013. John Charlton with the Department of Education says a lot of those cases come from the data scrubbing scandal that involved eight school districts.

"We've amped up our office, we hired a couple extra investigative attorneys on so that we can handle that and do the volume of other calls that come in as well," Charlton said.

And Charlton says reports of misconduct often bring in a flood of other claims, which he says happened after the state school board heard testimony last July about alleged cheating, sexual misconduct and other problems at Horizon Science Academy in Dayton.

Only about 11% of the referrals resulted in investigations.  And while more than 80% of referrals involved people who are applying for teaching licenses, 70% of the investigations involved licensed teachers.