10:38 AM
An investigation found that the school's reputation was a scam after it got clobbered in a football game.
The governor asked the attorney general and other officials to look into whether the school was in fact a high school. The changes recommended by the department will be worked on by DeWine and state education officials.
"Ohio families should be able to count on the fact that our schools educate students and don't exist in name only as a vehicle to play high school sports," DeWine said in a statement Friday.
The state found no evidence that multiple students were admitted this year and concluded that the school didn't meet minimum standards for academic offerings and student safety.
The physical address of the one student listed in the report was stated as a home in a residential neighborhood.
According to the ODE report, the administrator of Bishop Sycamore described his program as a way to get more exposure for football players who were having trouble getting into colleges.
The school's email address and phone number were used to leave messages for Peterson. In previous comments reported by USA Today Sports, he denied that the football game was a scam, saying that it helped players who wanted to compete in college.
It was identified as a non-chartered, non-tax-supported school by the ODE, which allowed it to circumvent some systems of operation because of its religious beliefs. The department couldn't determine if the Bishop had such beliefs.
The ODE concluded that Bishop Sycamore was not a school but a way for students to play football against high school teams and increase their chances of playing football at the collegiate level.
The department said that the cost of the dream for those students was more than the tuition charged to attend the school. The price was the education the students were given.
The department doesn't have the power to sanction such schools and they aren't under its oversight.
The ODE's recommended changes included amending state law to allow the department to monitor whether the hundreds of schools listing themselves as non-chartered, non-tax-supported schools are meeting the more relaxed minimum standards for that category.
