A provision in Ohio's HB455 eliminates a major cost burden for online schools—and it takes effect this fall.
Most child care and education business owners in Ohio haven't heard about a quiet but significant change buried in HB455, the bill regarding public school operations and the Department of Education and Workforce (DEW). But if you operate or work with internet-based community schools—often called e-schools—this provision directly affects your bottom line starting September 30, 2025.
Until now, e-schools have operated under a strict requirement: they must provide every student a physical testing location within a 50-mile radius of that student's home for state-mandated assessments. For small, distributed online operators, this meant real money spent on facilities, staff time to proctor tests in person, and coordination costs across multiple test cycles each year. A school serving students across a wide geographic area faced compounding expenses with every testing window.
That requirement created a significant operational burden, especially for smaller e-school operators competing against traditional brick-and-mortar schools with built-in testing infrastructure.
Section 3314.25 of HB455 (found on page 222 of the bill) now permits e-schools to administer state tests using remote online proctoring instead of requiring a physical testing site. This is a straightforward operational shift: students take the test online from home or another location, with a proctor monitoring remotely via computer.
The practical effect is immediate and substantial. E-schools can eliminate the recurring costs of maintaining or renting testing facilities, paying in-person proctors, and managing logistics around test administration. For operators running lean, this removes a significant expense category from every testing cycle.
This change applies specifically to internet- or computer-based community schools—the e-schools that serve students entirely or primarily online. If you operate this type of school or provide services to them, the change takes effect upon enactment of the bill, which occurred September 30, 2025.
Traditional public schools and brick-and-mortar private schools are not affected by this provision.
The DEW is required to publish an annual anomaly report by September 1 each year, presumably to monitor how remote proctoring affects test integrity and results. This is standard oversight—the state wants data on whether remote administration produces any unexpected patterns in test performance or completion rates.
For e-school operators, this means keeping records and being prepared for potential future adjustments if the data shows problems. But the baseline permission to use remote proctoring is now in place.
If you're involved in e-school operations in Ohio, this is worth reviewing in detail. The cost savings are real, but so is the responsibility to implement remote proctoring in a way that maintains test security and meets state expectations.
Source: Ohio HB455, Sec. 3314.25, effective September 30, 2025.