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Reporting on the state of education in your community and across the country.

State Suspends Four Northeast Ohio Charter Schools

Jenlight / Flickr

Four Northeast Ohio charter schools have been suspended.The Ohio Department of Education sent letters to administrators from Cleveland's Villaview Community School, Imagine Cleveland Academy, and Cleveland Community School, along with Canton's Imagine on Superior Academy, letting them know the decision came down after state officials determined the schools weren't meeting the required level of student performance.“We did our own evaluations of each of those schools and determined that these four schools were not meeting student performance standards that they set down in their own contracts," ODE spokesperson John Charlton told our partners at WKSU. "And also that there were some violations of state and federal law regarding services provided to special education students.”The schools were each sponsored by the now-defunct Portage County Educational Service Center.In February, state education officials told the ESC they wouldn't be able to continue to sponsor any schools after the end of the school year, forcing all of the schools authorized by the continually poor-performing sponsor to find someone else to oversee operations.The Ohio Department of Education's Office of School Sponsorship assumed sponsorship of the four schools in question earlier this year.School administrators now have until the end of the week to let the department know how they plan to fix their problems.If they don't propose adequate changes, the schools may get shut down.