Former Columbus schools administrator pleads to data-scandal felonies By Bill Bush The Columbus Dispatch • Monday June 29, 2015 12:33 PM Michael Dodds, a top-level administrator who oversaw several Columbus City Schools buildings, has pleaded no contest to three felony charges in the district’s data scandal. Dodds entered his plea in Judge Kimberly Cocroft's courtroom in Franklin County Common Pleas Court this morning. Cocroft found him guilty of attempted tampering with government records, a fourth-degree felony, and two counts of unauthorized use of property — school computers — which are fifth-degree felonies. Sentencing will come later. Earlier this morning, Dodds appeared before Judge Michael Holbrook to waive indictment on the charges, setting up his plea before Cocroft. Dodds is the fourth, and is expected to be the last, Columbus schools administrator to be convicted of a crime for changing thousands of student records to make the district and some schools look better on state report cards. Because of the tampering, some educators received bonuses they did not earn and some parents missed out on private school vouchers because their children’s schools appeared to be doing too well to make them eligible. Counting Kids Out: Read the stories in the Dispatch investigation Dodds negotiated a deal just as Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien prepared to take the case to a grand jury and seek an indictment. Former Superintendent Gene Harris was convicted of dereliction of duty, a misdemeanor, after entering a plea. Stephen B. Tankovich, the district’s former top data administrator, and Stanley K. Pyle, a former assistant principal at Marion Franklin High School, were both convicted of a felony charge of attempted tampering with records, also after entering pleas. Only Tankovich has served jail time: 15 days. O’Brien has said he expects Dodds to also serve time in jail, but that it’s likely to be one day less than Tankovich. The district’s computer records show that Dodds withdrew students who hadn’t actually left so their test scores and attendance records wouldn’t count against the district. Students and others were set to testify that on days that Dodds withdrew them, they actually were in school — they had used their lunch accounts or had other proof that not only had they remained enrolled, they were physically there. In the employment hearings of two Columbus principals whose involvement cost them their jobs, others testified that Dodds regularly came into schools, sat down at a computer and made changes to student data. It appears that no one questioned why he was doing it or raised questions to Dodds’ peers or then-Superintendent Harris. Dozens of other Columbus schools administrators could face sanctions from the Ohio Department of Education, up to the loss of their educator licenses, for their roles in the data manipulation.