Ohio Auditor Dave Yost and Columbus Police carried out 34 search warrants Thursday at 20 Columbus City high schools. All but four schools had multiple search warrants.

Many of the warrants specifically called for the school to hand over “Student Cumulative Report Files.”

District spokesman Jeff Warner said those files include a variety of information including a student’s state test scores and classroom grades, as well as copies of grade cards.

But the files also include sensitive material such as health information, and Warner said a few parents have raised concerns over the release of such records.

The warrants provide very little additional information about what Yost’s office obtained in the search and how it relates to the investigation in to possible grade and attendance rigging.

Yost has said the investigation has no timeline.

State and federal authorities are investigating the school district, Ohio’s largest, over allegations employees improperly altered the grades or attendance records of struggling students to improve performance ratings in a process called “scrubbing.”

Ohio Auditor Dave Yost’s office issued the warrants and the district confirmed the searches were under way. At midday, investigators had executed search warrants at Marion-Franklin, Whetstone, Mifflin, Independence, Linden-McKinley and Northland high schools.

“The district and our schools are fully cooperating with authorities seeking these records,” district spokesman Jeff Warner said.

The probe was prompted by a 2011 request by Superintendent Gene Harris, which Yost initially declined to pursue, and eventually has grown to involve several top district employees.

In June, Yost launched the investigation after a renewed request from Harris. In the ensuing 10 months, Warner said the district has provided “hundreds, if not thousands” of student records of the same type sought by the search warrants.

Based on early findings in Columbus and districts in Toledo and suburban Cincinnati, Yost launched a separate statewide review of school district attendance and enrollment tracking changes.

Yost’s auditors spread out across the state to investigate a sampling of districts identified through a statistical analysis, not direct indications of wrongdoing.

That separate probe found nine Ohio districts that intentionally removed poor performing students from their rolls and discovered that more than 70 schools or districts had attendance reporting errors that didn’t appear to be purposeful.

Federal authorities joined the Columbus investigation in November and Yost separated the district from the rest of the state probe due to the likelihood of criminal referrals.

The temptations of scrubbing can include rosier district report cards, added state or federal funding and employee bonuses.

The practice has drawn attention across the country amid greater scrutiny of the increasingly data-driven world of public education. A former superintendent went to prison in Texas for conspiring to remove low-performing students from classrooms to boost average test scores. Principals in Oklahoma and Missouri also are out of their jobs after attendance-related scandals.

Buried deep in the more than 1,000 page document is a new amendment that would let the state superintendent of schools and a mayor in the district’s largest municipality appoint an academic distress commission, basically a second and even more-powerful school board.

But only if the district “is found by the Auditor of State to have knowingly manipulated student data with evidence of intent to deceive.”

Columbus remains under investigation by the auditor for what he calls widespread attendance recording scrubbing.

Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman has repeatedly said he’s not orchestrating a takeover of Columbus City Schools. On Wednesday, Coleman’s spokesman Dan Williamson said the mayor does not support the budget amendment and is focused on the meaningful work of the Columbus Education Commission. Williamson said the mayor views this latest development as a distraction.

The new amendment comes ahead of a townhall meeting Wednesday night for residents to talk about concerns over possible changes in the district.

The agency also says it will refund the $1 million in start-up funds it received from the State of Ohio in 2011.

The Jobs Ohio Beverage System (JOBS) will also refund any grant dollars it received since July 2011.

JobsOhio spokeswoman Laura Jones said the records were delivered Tuesday ahead of a noon deadline.

The agency complied despite continuing to maintain that Republican Auditor Dave Yost doesn’t have legal authority to audit the private side of the fledgling agency’s books.

Yost says Ohio law gives him the right to review private financial records with ties to public funds.

JobsOhio was created by Ohio Gov. John Kasich to “move at the speed of business.” It received $1 million in taxpayer dollars as start-up money and has gone to market with a $1.5 billion bond sale backed by rights to Ohio’s liquor business.

Republican Auditor David Yost says he fully anticipates that the governor’s office will comply with the March 19 subpoena because he says he hasn’t formally heard otherwise, though Republican Gov. John Kasich has told reporters he doesn’t feel the auditor has the authority to audit JobsOhio’s private dollars.

Look, our concern is for accountability, transparency. The nexus of the money is so close to its public source and there are so many public actions involved, we believe that it ought to be treated as public money.

Gov. Kasich confirms that he and Yost have talked, but he won’t say if JobsOhio will or won’t turn over the books.

The goal is to make sure that people understand the public dollars are going to be audited. We’ve asked them to take a look at all these public dollars and when it comes to additional issues there, we just have to work through it.

Kasich notes that the private firm KPMG has already done an audit of JobsOhio.

But many Republicans says Yost lacks the authority for such an audit.

Ohio’s Republican Auditor, Dave Yost, has issued a subpoena to JobsOhio, asking the private development agency to hand over financial records through the end of last June. That follows a private audit that shows JobsOhio received more than $5 million in state grants that many lawmakers say they didn’t know about.

And they say that money had not been disclosed in previous financial statements.

When asked by reporters about the subpoena, Republican Governor John Kasich minimizes the notion that he has a big disagreement with Yost.

The thing is they want to audit more than the public money and it gets to be problematic. If we give an incentive to a company here and they want to go in and audit their books, it gets to be really unworkable and disruptive.

“But if a company takes public money, that money ought to be audited by the Auditor of the State. It’s no more complicated than that,” Kasich says. “Look, I mean sometimes you read things and it appears one way. It’s just a little disagreement about how we should proceed.

When Kasich was asked if he knew about the $5 million grant amount, the Governor responds this way:

“You need to understand how this all works. It’s a complicated entity and I would suggest that you go talk to the development service agency and get over to JobsOhio and talk to them so you will understand how this all comes together.”

Kasich says Yost does not have the right to audit anything beyond public dollars and if an amendment spelling out a clarification in law about how JobsOhio can be audited is needed, he says lawmakers will get it.

But the Republican Speaker of the Ohio House, Bill Batchelder, says he was key in writing the rules to begin with and says it is already clear that Yost is overstepping his authority.

He doesn’t have that authority to go into a private corporation to audit it. I’m waiting for him to try to get in to Chrysler Motors or Fiat or whatever they call it now. You know we bought a lot of cars from them this year. What’s going on over there?

Batchelder says that last part in jest because he says private businesses do not allow public oversight of their books. He says there’s no reason to think there’s anything improper happening at JobsOhio.

“There might be a perception problem created by the auditor, but I think most people understood that board, you’ve looked at the list of board members. These are people above reproach. I mean this is not some group of cowboy,” Batchelder says.

But Ohio’s Democratic Party Chairman, Chris Redfern, says he can’t understand the Governor’s response to these questions.

The fact of the matter is it all seems so defensive, so reactive, if the first response from the Governor’s office is it’s complicated and oh yeah, we are going to get an amendment added to a bill that would essentially strip away the state auditor’s ability to audit the books. In the old days, you’d be a little less transparent if you are a crook on how you would steal the money.

Redfern says there’s no legal way nearly $5 million of state money could have been transferred to JobsOhio without the authority of the Ohio legislature.

And Redfern says that authority has never been given for those dollars.

“And no one is down at the Statehouse right now threatening to storm the door saying what on Earth is going on….there are 4.3 million dollars missing.”

Recently, the state offered 100 million dollars in state bonds to provide more money for JobsOhio.

Democratic State Representative Jay Carney says until these questions are answered, that transaction should be put on hold.

The Ohio Department of Education on Wednesday posted the results in a spreadsheet for now – instead of the charts, graphs and other visual elements that districts and families have come to expect.

Click here to look up your district and school building.

Results are still considered preliminary as Ohio Auditor Dave Yost investigates enrollment and attendance irregularities around the state.

The Ohio Board of Education voted to release the eagerly-awaited information, in part because Election Day is approaching and many districts are pursuing levy and bond issues.

The reports are normally published in August. Schools and districts have had access to preliminary student achievement data on standardized assessments throughout the summer.

Yost today released the preliminary audit into attendance record-keeping practices at 75 Ohio districts. The investigation follows revelations that several Ohio districts may have withdrawn poorly-performing students, then re-enrolled them.

Doing so keeps their standardized test scores from factoring into district report card ratings, although Yost says today’s report did not deal with why the changes were made.

“In Columbus’ public school district, we looked at ten middle schools. In each of them, we found pervasive evidence of students who had been rolled up to the state, who had a break in enrollment, who was not supported by the documentation,” Yost said.

“Without the documentation, all we have is anyone’s word. This is more than nitpicking about pieces of paper. Without the records, there is no evidence that the actions were properly taken by the government.”

Yost says school districts in Cleveland, Toledo, Marion, and Campbell also showed evidence of scrubbing.

Yost defined scrubbing as the practice of removing students from enrollment without unlawful reason, although he says scrubbing by itself does not guarantee wrong-doing.

The full investigation is expected to extend into next year.

A new evaluation of the Educational Management Information System, or EMIS, provided to The Associated Press highlights errors, delays, inconsistencies and a lack of training.

The districts are asking to work with the Ohio Department of Education to address problems they’ve experienced.

The call comes from districts in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo, Dayton, Akron, Canton and Youngstown.

Dave Yost is investigating allegations that certain Ohio districts might have manipulated data to boost performance ratings or employee bonuses.

Columbus City Schools Superintendent Gene Harris has announced she’ll retire when the school year ends as questions of unusual attendance and enrollment practices dog her district.

The Ohio Department of Education plans to release partial report card results on its Web site by midday, although a district’s attendance rate, performance index and overall rating will be omitted. That remains held up over the investigation into whether several Ohio districts changed attendance data to boost report card ratings.