(MT. VERNON, IL) — Mt. Vernon Township High School Superintendent Dr. Mike Smith is once again coming under fire, this time with claims accusing him of providing false ACT scores following a closed-door meeting last week, a claim Smith firmly denies. According to Randy Olson, Smith distributed to the media a 35-page packet after the meeting Thursday and had also apparently provided the same report to the school board. Olson says Smith attempts to take credit in the packet for perceived financial improvements at the school and rising ACT scores. However, Olson claims the information about the test scores was false and that a comparison of the charts provided by Smith and official results from the Illinois State Board of Education show Smith “grossly inflated” the actual numbers in an attempt to show scores have increased over the past four years. Olson says scores have actually declined significantly over that time frame and that student performance is dropping.’ Smith says the state has changed how they calculate the ACT scores over the last few years and he has his Office of Student Services is reviewing those charts to give us an exact year for when the changes were made. He says the change in how those scores were calculated – some years students who received extended test time were counted and other years they were not – would give skewed comparisons to the internal scores kept by the school. This is the latest criticism of Smith coming from Olson in recent weeks. Olson has publicly questioned Smith’s performance claiming that during his time as superintendent the school has lost 75 teachers and staff due to a “poor working environment” that had been created by Smith and Assistant Principal Robert Knutson. Olson blames the dropping ACT scores on an exodus of teachers from the school, which he says has resulted in poor morale and an increased use of substitute teachers. He also notes that the three unions representing the teachers and employees of MVTHS have taken a vote of no confidence against both Smith and Knutson and the board has not acted or responded. Smith says the school is at or slightly above the state average for teacher retention and that the district does try to perform exit interviews when teachers leave, but often they leave over the summer and an interview is not possible.