OHIO 44 MISSING COMPUTERS FROM CROSSROADS SCHOOLS PROBABLY STOLEN The Columbus Dispatch : 44 missing PCs probably stolen, officials surmise:
HARTE CROSSROADS SCHOOLS
44 missing PCs probably stolen, officials surmise
And now this: At least 44 computers, bought this school year, are missing. Probably stolen.
The folks trying to clean up what's left of Harte Crossroads Academy and Harte Crossroads High School -- the recently closed charter schools in Columbus City Center mall -- say they can account for only two of 48 new computers. They suspect they know where another two are.
It's unclear who took them. One parent said she saw teachers loading stacks of them onto audiovisual carts and wheeling them out of the mall. She reported it to administrators who are still at the schools sorting through records.
The administrators are reporting the missing computers to mall security.
"Right now, I can't even find an inventory list. I think there is a problem," said Quinn Haas, a consultant with Innovative Learning Solutions. The company had a contract to work with the Harte Crossroads schools on behalf of their sponsor, Richland Academy of the Arts.
He said he hopes the mall has cameras in the hallways. A mall security officer said she couldn't say whether there are cameras, and a call to another security official wasn't returned.
An additional 39 computers remain on campus, Haas said.
The ones that are missing had been taken away from classrooms and boxed up because students were misbehaving, said Marianne Cooper, Richland's executive director. She said the schools' furniture and equipment likely will be sold once it's accounted for.
Richland took over the schools March 1 after firing founder Anita Nelam and the school board. Richland said it didn't have the authority to close the schools, but Nelam had told parents they would be shuttered.
Richland officials said they would try to keep the schools open through the end of the school year but gave up March 16 after learning that the state had cut off funding. The state said the schools were paid for more students than actually attended.
The students who attended Harte Crossroads had to find new schools with less than three months of the school year left. About 35 students had enrolled in Columbus Public Schools by last week. They were mostly elementary kids, district spokesman Jeff Warner said.
Only a couple of high-school students came back to the district, Warner said. It's unclear where the others went or whether they'll graduate this year.
Parents who stopped by the mall to ask where their children should enroll were referred to other charters, which are tuition-free public schools that typically are privately run.
"This school failed me. I'm certainly not going to take any referral they give me," said Pamela Palmer, whose daughter, Janae, is a seventh-grader. She said she'd enroll Janae in a private school.
Haas said he's been sorting through student records, preparing them for children's new schools.
The Ohio Department of Education also is camped out at the schools, trying to figure out how many students really went there.
Even though the schools reported that 291 students attended, the number was likely 196 or fewer, state workers found. As many as 60 percent of students' records contained discrepancies, the department said.
The state auditor's office still is trying to figure out the schools' finances, but officials have said they are in debt.
jsmithrichards@ dispatch.com
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