With all that has gone on in the world since, the scandal surrounding the not-so-recently deceased Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow feels like $80 million ago.
ECOT, Ohio's first and, at one point, largest online charter school, shut down three years ago after the Ohio Department of Education demanded the school repay that much of its state aid for the 2015-16 and 2016-17 school years.
The state said the overpayment was based on inflated enrollment numbers provided by ECOT.
That was far from the end of it. The end, in fact, is nowhere in sight.
The school has not repaid the $80 million, and for the past three years has been engaged in court battles about it on various fronts, with ECOT lawyers arguing everything but, "We shouldn't have to pay back Ohio because the state would just blow it on something else anyway."