City Day Community School

ROSEDA GOFF FOUND GUILTY; December 12, 2007; Dayton Daily News (OH) 

Roseda Goff, the former superintendent at the center of controversy at City Day Community School, was found guilty Wednesday of attempted obstructing of official business for allegedly interfering when school staff felt cases of child abuse and neglect needed to be reported to law officers.

Montgomery County Juvenile Court Judge Tony Capizzi said in his decision that Goff attempted to dissuade a teacher, Nate Moore, from reporting suspicions of physical abuse to the county’s childrens’ services investigators…

In February, a Dayton Daily News examination found City Day students practiced on 44 questions were identical or nearly the same as questions that later appeared on the actual state exam in the days leading up to the March 2006 administration of the Ohio Achievement Tests. That prompted a state investigation that still is underway.

Then in early May a City Day employee was caught taking notes while reviewing an Ohio Achievement Test that students were to take later in the week by proctors sent by the school’s sponsor to monitor the exam administration.

In testimony at Goff’s trial last month, four former City Day teachers said she ruled the school like a “dictator” and that teachers, who did not had employment contracts, lived in fear of being fired if they crossed her…

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WITH PROCTORS IN CLASS, CITY DAY'S TEST SCORES FALL: THE CHARTER SCHOOL IS UNDER STATE INVESTIGATION FOR POSSIBLY CHEATING ON THE ACHIEVEMENT TESTS IN 2006. (Dayton Daily News, August 16, 2007)

DAYTON — City Day Community School, under state investigation for possibly cheating on Ohio achievement tests in 2006, saw its scores plummet in 2007 when testing there was monitored.

Last year, City Day jumped two steps from the bottom rating of academic emergency to continuous improvement on Ohio's five-step scale after huge test score gains.

The Dayton Daily News first reported in February that 44 questions on practice tests taken by City Day students were identical or substantially the same as questions that appeared on the actual state exam they took just days later in March 2006.

On last August's report card, City Day made big gains. For instance, at sixth-grade math, no students passed in 2005 but 57 percent passed in 2006. No City Day students passed fourth-grade math in 2005, but 52 percent passed in 2006.

When the state tests were given in the spring of 2007 in the midst of a state investigation, the charter school's sponsor sent proctors. They sent one teacher home for allegedly taking notes on a state test to be given later in the week.

The 2007 report card show just 25 percent passing sixth-grade math and 9 percent passing fourth-grade math. In all, City Day's reading and math scores at grades four through seven dropped by at least 10 percent on seven of eight state tests…

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QUESTIONS RAISED ABOUT MATERIALS THAT BOOSTED TEST SCORES-DAYTON'S CITYDAY CHARTER SCHOOL IS UNDER SCRUTINY, BUT THE SUPERINTENDENT SAYS THE SCHOOLDID NOTHING WRONG; February 04, 2007; Dayton Daily News 

DAYTON — The test results seemed too good to be true.

A Dayton charter school that has consistently rated in the state's lowest category of "academic emergency" achieved a phenomenal improvement in just one year.

The sixth-grade class at City Day Community School didn't have a single student pass the math portion of the Ohio Achievement Test in 2004-05. A year later, 100 percent of its seventh graders passed the state's seventh-grade math test.

Similarly, no one in the school's 2004-05 fourth-grade class passed the state math test that year, but a year later, 59 percent of the fifth-grade class passed the state math exam.

It now appears that those too-good-to-be-true results were just that.

A Dayton Daily News investigation found students at City Day Community School, 318 S. Main St., were given 44 practice test questions that are identical or substantially the same as questions that appeared on the actual state exam they took just days later…