This post contains the following public record documents available for download:
The Ohio Board of Education & Workforce’s ruling Re: The matter of Columbus City Schools and Courtney Hale
CCS Courtney Hale disciplinary file (with district’s report)
Just when I thought my fingers were done rattling the keyboard about the insurance swindle plaguing Columbus City Schools, the state of Ohio delivered a ruling deserving an encore: Courtney Hale is innocent!
The CCS Board of Education, at the recommendation of CCS Superintendent Angela Chapman, resolved to fire Courtney Hale on June 16, 2026, for allegedly signing contracts with Aon that should have had Board approval, neglecting her duties, and violating ‘Administrator Ethics’ included under Board Policy 1200.
While it was unbeknownst to the public at the time, because neither the school district nor the unions in the district had shared the $40,000,000 gut punch from Aon, Hale was taking it on the chin for an entire system of neglect and carelessness that lifts up the district’s superintendent and bloated administration.
While it was quietly being pinned on her name, two weeks later I noticed Hale wasn’t going down without her own swing. The CCS Board meeting minutes from June 26, 2026 had exactly one document attached, and it was a banger.
To the untrained eye it looks like another toothless resolution articulating ‘values’ instead of action. But my eyebrows jumped and my jaw dropped because the wording was clear: Courtney Hale had filed for a public hearing.
Courtney Hale believed she was wrongfully terminated.
I truly cannot tell you how many times I have read Hale’s disciplinary file. I have damn near memorized those 112 pages of the district’s investigation into what would become known as The Insurance Crisis Swindle.
I wanted to attend Hale’s hearing myself, but try as I might, I could not find the location. Hale has given very little on-the-record statements regarding the issue, but she did speak to The Dispatch shortly after the story broke from The Rooster and became a mainstreamed news interest.
She didn’t go into much detail, but she said she was taking the fall for something that wasn’t her fault, and was catching retaliation for vocalizing opposition regarding a separate swindle in the district, which was the CCS Chief of Staff, Mike Defabo, having free rein to determine his own salary and bonuses.
(Defabo suddenly resigned in November 2025 shortly after a backdated title change with a salary bump)
I kept up the beat on the issue, and I turned to social media messaging in September when CCS made it clear they were going to pin the monetary loss onto staff’s paychecks. In that viral video I briefly mentioned the fact that one person had been fired and she had gone on the record saying it wasn’t her fault, because that has never left my mind.
For months I would find myself staring at my ceiling wishing I could speak with Hale, and wondering, if I had an opportunity to ask her just one question, what would it be?
I have not had the opportunity to speak with Hale, but Shotgun Chelsea obtained the 12 page report from her public hearing late last night.
The report lays everything out quite clearly to those with the reading comprehension level above 4th grade: Courtney Hale was set up.
There is no evidence of Hale doing her job incorrectly. Regarding the documents she signed that were supposed to be approved by the Board, she caught her own mistake, alerted her supervisor CCS Chief Talent Officer/CFHO Amy Grover, and quickly sought assistance to rectify the problem.
Moreover, those contracts were for pennies and in no way damaging to the district. The situation has been deemed Damnum Absque Injuria — legalese for “harm without injury”.
Additionally, the document signing “issue” happened in January 2025, which is 9 months before the district started their investigation into this matter (and thus, themselves). After catching and correcting her own error, she then had a performance review where her supervisor rated her Accomplished — the highest achievable rating — in all settings and aspects of the review.
So it’s quite apparent the problem CCS leadership was trying to fire Hale for — more than a year later — was actually completely fine and in no way a problem for anyone in the district until they had an emergency on their hands and had to find an expendable and somewhat logical person to blame it on.
I can’t help but feel for Hale, considering my bosses in CCS (who, as an administrative team, relocated themselves to Groveport Madison school district) did the same damn thing to me last year.
This is actually such a common occurrence in CCS that I would say it’s likely a prerequisite for any administrator being hired into the district: desirable applicants must have a demonstrated ability to scapegoat your subordinates at any given moment to cover your own ass.
The written decision regarding Hale’s termination does leave me with a question I didn’t see coming: What is CCS Director of Total Rewards Rebekah Roe’s problem?
In Hale’s disciplinary file from the school district, which contains the documents detailing CCS’s investigation into themselves, Roe — whom the state Referee dubs the district’s “main protagonist” — gives the most damning condemnation of Hale’s character and job capability, which is completely slaughtered by the facts revealed in Hale’s public hearing documents.
In fact, the interviews with the CCS district administrators that were summarized and put into Hale’s disciplinary file were so in appropriate the state of Ohio didn’t even deem them admissible into the state’s investigation. The public hearing document goes even further regarding the statements, in footnote 17, to write “The Referee believes that putting such hearsay into a so-called investigative report does not increase its doubtful reliability or make it an admissible business record.”
Not only should Roe’s water cooler comments be left to rot in 3700 S. High Street — the district’s administrator building they purchased from ECOT, rumored to still be standing atop hundreds of millions of dollars of stolen taxpayer money— but I find Roe’s work history to be of interest here.
Roe was a subordinate to Hale, and somewhat new to the position in the district when this all went down. Before coming into the position below Hale, Roe had worked in the CCS Treasurer’s office.
The insurance crisis swindle still has several hanging threads, and one of them is the blatant absence of CCS Treasurer Ryan Cook, who pulls in a base salary of $206,000. Additional public records recently obtained by Shotgun Chelsea show Treasurer Cook was never present at any of the Joint Insurance Committee (JIC) meetings leading up to or during the insurance crisis swindle.
In fact, according to the JIC meeting minutes and agendas dating back to 2023, the Treasurer has never been at any JIC meetings.
This is not common practice. After checking with several neighboring school districts in Ohio, the Treasurer is at least quarterly — if not always — at insurance committee meetings.
The treasurer should be at the JIC meetings not only for their depth of knowledge regarding the district’s financials, but they also reserve the right to call for certain measures, such as stop-loss coverage (a financial safety net for insurance that could have safeguarded the district from the current catastrophe).
The Ohio Board of Education and Workforce further notes, in Hale’s public hearing documents, Hale nor Roe are qualified to make decisions regarding the health insurance programs for CCS employees.
This means there is no one at the table in the Joint Insurance Committee that has any idea what the hell is happening, nor has the professional knowledge to present or make educated recommendations and decisions on the incredibly important working condition of emplyees (with the exception of Steve Parsons, the actuary the district hired for short-term consulting on the current issue).
I tip my hat to Hale and commend her. It is easier said than done to stick up for yourself when Columbus City Schools is your employer.
According to the state of Ohio, CCS needs to hire Hale back into her position, provide her with backpay, and a letter of admonishment (at the least).
Will we see Hale come back to CCS? Or will we see her lawyer up and take this ruling to the next level as a plaintiff? It seems like she has a hell of a chance at a win, but what do I know? I’m just a high school English teacher.
The public record documents cited in this article are available for download below: