Auditors: weak oversight over enrollment counts from online schools
State auditors have found weak oversight over student counts filed by online charter schools.
Georgia’s three statewide full-time virtual schools have nearly 20,000 students, and get more than $5,000 for each.
The issue: they count students and give the numbers to the state, with little or no verification — until recently. The Georgia Department of Audits, prompted by state lawmakers, examined the schools' attendance documents and found 371 students reported as enrolled despite records that indicated they didn't attend the schools enough to be counted. And that was just for the 2014-15 school year.
The largest school, the Georgia Cyber Academy, has been operating since 2007. The other two, Georgia Connections Academy and Graduation Achievement Charter High School, are newer.
The Georgia Department of Education says it’s going its tighten controls around online enrollment reporting as a result of the examination.
About the Author
Ty Tagami is a staff writer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Since joining the newspaper in 2002, he has written about everything from hurricanes to homelessness. He has deep experience covering local government and education, and can often be found under the Gold Dome when lawmakers meet or in a school somewhere in the state.
