Academic Distress Commission

The trigger is a report card rating, three years running. R.C. 3302.10(A) says the department “shall establish an academic distress commission” — shall, not may — for any district that has for three consecutive years received an overall grade of “F” under R.C. 3302.03(C)(3), or an overall performance rating of less than two stars under R.C. 3302.03(D)(3). verified

The commission is majority state-appointed. Five members: three by the director of education and workforce, one by the president of the district board, one by the mayor. Appointments within thirty days of notice; the director designates the chairperson from among the director’s own three. verified An elected board retains one seat on the body that supersedes it.

And the chief executive officer is paid by the department. Within sixty days the commission appoints a CEO for the district, “who shall be paid by the department of education and workforce”. verified The person exercising the district’s authority is not on the district’s payroll.

The powers are fiscal, which is why the intervention belongs beside the funding # ↑ Contents

The CEO’s enumerated powers under division (C)(1) include defining employee responsibilities, setting compensation, allocating teacher class loads, conducting evaluations, making reductions in staff, setting the calendar, contracting for services, modifying board policy, establishing grade configurations, determining curriculum, setting class sizes — and “(j) Creating a budget for the district.” verified

The elected board continues to exist and continues to levy. What it no longer does is decide how the money is spent. The base cost build-up, the local share, the guarantee and the supplements all compute an amount that arrives at a district whose spending decisions have been transferred to a state appointee. inference

There is also a fund of its own: under division (G)(2) the CEO “shall establish a separate fund to support innovative education programs”, holds sole authority to disburse from it until the district exits, and every disbursement must support the approved improvement plan. Moneys appropriated by the General Assembly for that purpose go into it. verified

What this repository computed # ↑ Contents

Not what Ohio publishes. Figures derived here from committed fixtures, each one citing the test that reproduces it.

It pays and takes at once, and it is not the same number # ↑ Contents

This node used to say “the same number pays and takes”, and asked whether any district had been in both positions at once. It was checkable. Youngstown City is under an academic distress commission today and the department’s FY2027 model pays it $162,207.67 on the performance supplement. All three districts that have had a commission are in that model, rated on the 2024-25 report card: verified computed; see crates/project/tests/the_supplements_outside_the_formula.rs

East Cleveland   3 stars    progress 4   released                 $55,029.14
Lorain           2 stars    progress 2   dissolved by H.B. 33            $0
Youngstown       2.5 stars  progress 3   still under one         $162,207.67

The ratings are the 2024-25 card’s, and Youngstown has since reached three. The calculator gives its overall-rating column no year, and its Directions sheet says the supplement “uses 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 report cards”. The department’s 2024-25 high-level download settles which: the calculator’s overall rating equals that card’s for all 607 rated districts. verified computed; see crates/project/tests/the_supplements_outside_the_formula.rs On the 2025-26 card, released in September 2026, Youngstown is rated three stars, East Cleveland three and Lorain two and a half. verified Ohio School Report Cards — District High-Level Ratings The model pays FY2027 on the older card, so the table dates the money correctly and Youngstown’s rating a year back.

But it is not the same number, and that is why both positions can be held at once. R.C. 3302.10 triggers on the overall rating. The supplement pays on the greater of the overall and progress ratings, gated by three routes, two of which read progress alone — and both paid districts here qualify on the progress route, neither on the star route. Youngstown is taken by one component of the report card and paid by another. The corpus already holds why the two can disagree: the same spending variable carries −0.073 against attainment and +0.209 against growth. verified

The threshold that pays sits below the threshold that releases. Division (N)(1) needs three stars to begin a transition out. On the 2024-25 card 59 districts sit below that — Youngstown among them at 2.5, though its own exit runs through R.C. 3302.103 rather than (N), below — and 15 of them are paid, $3,036,977.90 between them, not one through the star route. A district can be too poorly rated to start its own release and well enough rated to be paid for its performance in the same year. verified computed

In the trigger band itself — R.C. 3302.10(A)(1) establishes a commission after three consecutive years below two stars — 15 districts sit at two stars or fewer, and exactly one is paid: Jefferson Township Local, $10,426.68, on a progress rating of 3 against an overall of 2. verified computed Two of the 59 are the department’s own zero-fill rather than a rating: College Corner Local and Kelleys Island Local read 0 stars, and Kelleys Island has an ADM of 3.51. A report card cannot rate students it is forbidden to report.

Who has actually been under one # ↑ Contents

Three districts, on the department’s own page: verified Academic Distress Commission — the department's commission page, read 10 August 2026

East Cleveland City Schools   released late December 2025; commission ceased
Lorain City School District   dissolved by H.B. 33, signed 4 July 2023
Youngstown City Schools       continuing; the sole district left under one as of January 2026

Three commissions have met three different ends, and none of them was division (N). The release notice this node previously recorded without opening has now been read, and it dates East Cleveland’s exit — not on its face, because the letter carries no date line, but from the department’s own filename (message-12_25), the letter’s closing promise to visit “in January”, and reporting of 2 January 2026 that it was sent in late December. Late December 2025, and no finer. verified Academic Distress Commission — the department's commission page, notice read 15 September 2026 The district had been under state control since 2018, so its commission ran roughly seven years.

The letter’s grounds are the benchmarks of a plan: 16 of 20 met, the Performance Index up more than 12 points, a 4-star Progress rating, and an overall rating of 3 stars. verified The statute they answer to is R.C. 3302.103, not division (N). H.B. 110 enacted that section for the three districts then under a commission. Each board wrote an academic improvement plan “in effect from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2025”, with annual and overall benchmarks. While a district implements its plan, division (E) says it “shall not be subject to section 3302.10”: the board takes its powers back, the chief executive officer is removed, and the commission continues only to assist. At the end, division (F)(2) says a district that meets “at least a majority of the academic improvement benchmarks” has its commission “dissolved”. verified crates/project/fixtures/revised-code.txt East Cleveland’s plan was approved on 3 December 2021, so from July 2022 division (N) did not apply to it at all, and 16 of 20 is a majority. The release is division (F)(2). verified The three stars are in the letter as a result, not as a ground: a first three-star year could not have completed (N)(1) anyway, because that year only begins a transition. Either way the commission no longer exists, so R.C. 3310.03(E)(2)‘s cut-off for first-time scholarships is still the same event.

The plan years left the two scholarship divisions disagreeing. R.C. 3310.03(C) makes a student eligible if the resident district “is subject to section 3302.10”, and 3302.103(E)(1) says a district implementing its plan is not. Division (E)(2) stops first-time awards only when the commission “ceases to exist”, and 3302.103(E)(3) keeps the commission in existence through the plan. verified Read literally, division (C) switched Option A off in July 2022 while division (E)(2) waited for the dissolution. inference The department’s designated list follows the second reading in every plan-year edition read. The 2022-23 list, written in late 2021, flags all three districts in their first plan year: East Cleveland’s 4 buildings, Lorain’s 15 and Youngstown’s 13. The 2024-25 and 2025-26 lists flag East Cleveland and Youngstown and drop Lorain, whose commission H.B. 33 dissolved, and the 2026-27 list still flags East Cleveland in November 2025. verified EdChoice Designated List — which buildings' students may claim a scholarship

The department’s rule says why. OAC 3301-11-03(A), effective 15 June 2023, has it publish the buildings meeting division (A), (B) or (C) of R.C. 3310.03 and “remove from the list any school building that has ceased operations or fulfills the criteria described in division (E)”. verified The rule cites “section 3301.03”, which concerns the state board’s members and has no division (E) criteria, so the cross-reference is a slip for 3310.03. inference So a building enters on (C) and leaves only on (E), and a plan year is not an (E) event. The rule postdates the 2022-23 list, and neither it nor LSC’s final analysis of H.B. 110 mentions 3302.103(E)(1): LSC describes the plan years without EdChoice and EdChoice without the plan years. verified

The two-to-three star trap does not hold anyone here. This node reasoned that a district between two and three stars can neither re-trigger nor begin its exit under division (N). That is still how the section reads, but none of the three has been subject to it since July 2022, and the department names no other district under a commission. Youngstown sat at 2.5 on the 2024-25 card, and in January 2026 the department told reporters that its removal “would have to be the result of state legislation”. verified Under 3302.103 a district that misses a majority may apply for up to two one-year extensions. If it misses at the end of five years, or an extension is refused, division (F)(1)(b) returns it to R.C. 3302.10 with a new chief executive officer. verified The extension is the first, for 2025-26. The director’s letter of 22 January 2026 finds that Youngstown “did not meet the majority” of its overall benchmarks, declines its request for release, and approves “an extension for the Youngstown City School District in accordance with R.C. 3302.103” for “the extension year (2025-2026 school year)”. It refuses the district’s request to amend the benchmarks, because 3302.103(D)(2) closed the revision window on 30 June 2025. verified The district’s own 2024-25 annual report counts 6 of 24 benchmarks met, after 9 in 2023-24 and 16 in 2022-23. verified Academic Distress Commission — the department's commission page, both read 2 October 2026 Its remark then fits a district that can leave early only by statute, with its benchmarks judged again at the end of the extension, rather than the star band. inference

So FY2027 is the last year the plan route can run, not a year it is known to run. The extension year ended on 30 June 2026. Division (F)(1)(a) lets the district “again” apply for one more year, and the five years of (F)(1)(b) end on 30 June 2027. verified At its end Youngstown either met a majority and its commission dissolved, or holds a second extension for 2026-27, or is back under R.C. 3302.10 with a new chief executive officer. Which of the three is not recorded: the department’s page lists no second application or approval, and it has not been modified since 10 February 2026. open So of the three, one left on its plan, one by statute, and the third has done neither. verified

The 2025-26 card does not say which, but it changes what the third outcome would mean. The extension year is the year that card rates, and on it Youngstown reaches three stars. The plan’s benchmarks are its own 24, not the overall rating, and no held source scores them for 2025-26. open If Youngstown is back under R.C. 3302.10, three stars is the rating division (N)(1) needs to begin a transition out, so the two-to-three star trap below would no longer describe it. Whether a rating for a year spent outside the section can begin that transition the section does not say. open

All three were under oversight when a 2021 change in state law required an academic improvement plan running three school years with annual benchmarks; revised plans were approved for all three on 3 December 2021. verified That change is H.B. 110’s.

Two acts already in this corpus turn out to have accountability effects it did not record. H.B. 33 is modeled here for refreshing the cost inputs to FY2022 and making EdChoice universal; it also dissolved Lorain’s commission. H.B. 110 is modeled as the Fair School Funding Plan act, and it did the commission work itself. Its greenbook says the budget “prohibits the creation of any new ADCs for the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 school years” and “establishes a process by which the three school districts currently subject to an ADC may be relieved from the oversight of the ADC prior to meeting the conditions prescribed by continuing law”. verified greenbook LSC’s final analysis places the exit process at R.C. 3302.103 and Section 812.20 and the moratorium at Section 265.520. It also says the report card measures that trigger a commission, and that let a district leave one, were revised by H.B. 82 of the 134th General Assembly, effective 30 September 2021, not by H.B. 110. inference the final analysis is not committed A budget bill in Ohio carries the funding formula and the accountability regime in the same instrument, which is an argument for holding both domains that only became visible once both were held. inference

The three commissions are dated by the statute that let them out. R.C. 3302.103(A) applies to a district whose commission was established in 2010 or in 2013 under the former R.C. 3302.10 and re-established under the current section, and to one established in 2018 under the current section. verified crates/project/fixtures/revised-code.txt The 2018 commission is East Cleveland’s, which matches the reporting around its release. The section names no district.

The department’s own pages name them, in the years they were written. Its Youngstown page says the commission “was established by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction in January of 2010, pursuant to Section 3302.10”, and adopted its first recovery plan on 28 June 2010. Lorain’s recovery plan says its commission “was established by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction in April of 2013”, and its first minutes are of 22 April 2013. verified Academic Distress Commission — the department's commission page, archived editions read 2 October 2026 So division (A)(2), the 2010 commission, is Youngstown’s, and division (A)(1), the 2013 one, is Lorain’s. Two of the three commissions began under the former section and were carried into the current one.

And Cleveland is not one of the three. Its node records “state academic distress intervention for part of the period” without saying which regime. The regime before this one is the former R.C. 3302.10, the arrangement the current section refers to when it speaks of a commission “still in existence on October 15, 2015”. H.B. 66 created it. Its greenbook records that the act required the department to establish a commission for an academic emergency district that had failed adequate yearly progress in four consecutive years, with authority over personnel, management and budgetary decisions. verified greenbook LSC’s final analysis places it at R.C. 3302.10 effective July 2007. inference R.C. 3302.103(A) lists the commissions under the former section that survived into the current one, Youngstown’s of 2010 and Lorain’s of 2013. Cleveland, if it was under the former section, had left it by October 2015. inference Whether it was ever under a commission at all has not been read. open Reading the current three as the complete history would lose the fact that Ohio has had two regimes, and since 2021 a third route out of the second.

Getting out is harder than staying in # ↑ Contents

The exit criteria are division (N), and they are not the trigger run backwards. verified They are the section’s own, and since July 2022 none of the three districts has been subject to them: R.C. 3302.103 set them aside for the plan years, as above.

A district begins a transition out when it receives an overall grade of “C” or higher, or an overall performance rating of three stars or higher. That year starts a clock and, expressly, “shall not count as one of the two consecutive school years” that follow: the transition ends only after two further years at higher than “F”, or two stars or higher. Three years at the fastest, on two different thresholds. And division (N)(2) is the trap — a single year back below two stars during the transition ends it, and the district “shall resume being fully subject to this section at the point it began its transition”, so the escalation ladder in divisions (H) through (L) does not reset. It resumes where it stopped.

Compare the two. Entry is three consecutive years below two stars. Exit is one year at three stars and then two years at two stars. So the band between two and three stars is neither in nor out, and it is a trap for a district already inside: at two-and-a-half stars it is not re-triggering, and it cannot start the exit clock either, because that needs three. inference The section sets no maximum duration; how long a commission lasts is entirely what division (N) makes of the ratings.

On the three held cards, East Cleveland reached three stars first. It reads 2, 3 and 3 stars on the 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 cards; Youngstown 2, 2.5 and 3; Lorain 2, 2 and 2.5. verified crates/project Read against division (N), East Cleveland’s 2024-25 card would have begun a transition and its 2025-26 card counted as the first of the two years after it; Youngstown spent 2024-25 in the two-to-three star band and reached three on the last card held; Lorain never reached three. inference None of it was division (N)‘s to read, since R.C. 3302.103 set the division aside for the plan years. The 2022-23 card and the letter-grade years before it are not held, so which years each district cleared under the earlier measures is not established. open

There is one other exit, in division (O): if reconstitution or closure leaves the district operating no schools at all, the commission ceases to exist. verified An intervention whose most drastic power is closing schools terminates itself by exercising it.

The flag has a per-building consequence, and it is a dated fact inside a computed file # ↑ Contents

Division (G)(3)‘s EdChoice switch is now observable per building. The department’s Designated List 2026-2027 carries an Academic Distress School column, and it is the one input to the designation that this repository reads rather than derives — every other column rebuilds from the raw counts, and this one cannot, because it records whether a commission exists rather than any arithmetic. The workbook was authored 13 November 2025, when East Cleveland’s commission still did. verified crates/dispersion

So the list asserts an Option A eligibility for 2026-2027 that the release had already ended, and the file is still unrevised. What that costs is nothing: East Cleveland’s five buildings qualify on the performance-and-poverty route as well, and the only buildings resting on the distress route alone are two of Youngstown’s, in the one district still under a commission. verified crates/dispersion An intervention’s end reaches the scholarship channel through a column in a spreadsheet, and it reached it late.

No district has met the trigger since the star ratings began. R.C. 3302.10(A)(1)(b) needs an overall rating of “less than two stars” for three consecutive years, and R.C. 3302.03(D)(3)(g) assigns that rating “beginning with the 2022-2023 school year”. So the earliest card a star-rated run could end on is 2024-25, and every run ending on a card issued so far includes it. No district is below two stars on the 2024-25 card, and none on the 2025-26 card. Across the three held editions, 2023-24 to 2025-26, one district is below two stars in any year: Jefferson Township Local, 1.5 stars on the 2023-24 card, then 2, then 3. verified crates/project

The three commissions this node records were all established before the star system. No new one can be established under division (A)(1) before the 2028-29 card, because a run has to start after the 2025-26 card, which puts no district below two stars. inference

What is still not established. Whether any commission changed outcomes, which is what the apparatus rests on. open The trigger predicts establishment, not existence, so it could not have audited the column above in any case. inference