The Cleveland office also convened the grand jury there last month. The Cleveland office requested the search warrants here, in suburban Chicago and for other Horizon schools in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. attorney's office in Cleveland and Cincinnati declined comment on the investigation. The schools run in large part on taxpayer money, but are operated privately as an alternative to traditional public education.įBI agents raided Concept Schools in suburban Chicago on the same day as the Cincinnati search. According to state records, it enrolled about 470 students last school year in Cincinnati - one of nearly three dozen charter schools in Southwest Ohio. Horizon specializes in teaching math and science. Such arrangements are typical with other charter schools and their management companies Concept took in similar amounts from its other Horizon Academies in Ohio and elsewhere. Horizon Cincinnati's 2012 tax return shows it sent $224,000 to Concept Schools, the nonprofit that runs dozens of schools in the Midwest. That included $3.1 million in funds funneled through Cincinnati Public Schools, as the majority of Horizon's local students came from the CPS district. The Cincinnati school received nearly $3.3 million in government grants last school year, according to state education records. The attorney for Horizon Cincinnati, Tim Clements, also did not return calls seeking comment.Ĭoncept Schools manages 19 charter schools in Ohio with 2013-14 total enrollment of nearly 6,700 students, funded by $48.5 million from state taxpayers. Ucan did not return several phone and email messages to his office. Horizon Cincinnati's dean of students, Jonathan Williams, referred all questions to Salim Ucan, vice president of Concept Schools. "This has nothing to do with school threats or violence, and everything is sealed for now." Department of Education and the FCC, executed 19 court authorized search warrants in regards to an ongoing white-collar-type matter," said Vicki Anderson, spokeswoman for the FBI office in Cleveland, which is leading the investigation. Several technology firms are named in the federal warrant served locally as well as at other locations, indicating a potential line of inquiry for investigators. The program also requires schools to pick from vendors after submitting bids. The $2.3 billion E-rate program, administered by the Federal Communications Commission, provides discounts to help schools and libraries obtain affordable telecommunications and Internet access. The court-ordered search warrant and a log of evidence seized in the raid focus on the federal E-rate program or the installation or upgrades of computer networks. Both the Department of Education and Ohio Auditor Dave Yost launched investigations after former teachers and a student at the Horizon Dayton school made complaints to the State Board of Education about alleged sexual misconduct and tampering with test and attendance records. The news of the local search comes as 19 Ohio charter schools managed by Chicago-based Concept Schools are under investigation by state officials. The evidence log from the June 4 search indicates that at least 11 FBI agents took part. The search came days before officials from the local school were scheduled to appear before a federal grand jury in Cleveland, according to documents obtained by The Enquirer through an Ohio public records request. FBI agents raided a Bond Hill charter school in June as part of an ongoing federal investigation into whether Horizon Science Academy Cincinnati, its sister schools in Ohio and two other states, and its management company outside Chicago had improper relationships with several technology vendors.
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