![]() “I don’t care how you twist any facts or imply anything that you want, anyone that is going to spend time with me is going to see that I am focused on improving the lives of Oklahoma students each and every day. “I’m consistently on point about student outcomes and what is best for students,” Campbell said. “ committed to a partnership in making sure these issues don’t come up again.”Īs Epic staff members exited their meeting with OSDE on Tuesday, Campbell described his priorities. ![]() “Overall, I hope the takeaway was that it was a positive conversation,” Clark said. until about noon to discuss the report released today, Clark said. OSDE executives met with Epic representatives from 9 a.m. “We’ve spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours looking into these complaint allegations, and a large part of that was really invested in talking with Epic staff,” Clark said. Hofmeister said her agency’s new inquiry began after a former board member of Community Strategies - the nonprofit governing board of Epic Charter Schools - resigned suddenly in December and submitted a letter alleging questionable behavior by board Chairman Paul Campbell and unapproved staff bonuses Hofmeister and OSDE legal counsel Brad Clark said Tuesday that the findings in the new report - which covers the 2020-2021 school years - would be turned over to Prater, State Auditor & Inspector Cindy Byrd and potentially other authorities. “I was just forwarded the new report,” Prater said. Prater said Tuesday that his review of the prior Epic allegations remains ongoing and that he would be reviewing the OSDE’s new findings as well. Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater is in the process of reviewing the findings of a years-long criminal investigation into Harris, Chaney and EYS. Epic terminated its relationship with school founder Ben Harris and David Chaney, as well as with Epic Youth Services, the private management company owned by Harris and Chaney. The new Epic report ( linked below) comes roughly two years after the charter schools overhauled their leadership and went through a robust corrective action plan at OSDE’s direction. OSDE, Epic staff had a ‘positive conversation’ “They certainly meet the qualifications for that, and a very close working (relationship) and accountability - more regularly than annually - will be required of them,” Hofmeister said, noting that the board will have the ultimate decision on her proposed probation for Epic. ![]() Hofmeister said she would recommend that the State Board of Education place Epic Charter Schools on probation at a July meeting. After years of allegations about improperly reported student enrollment data by Epic Charter Schools, the Oklahoma State Department of Education released a 76-page report today outlining alleged attendance fraud, Open Meeting Act violations and “improper, unapproved and excessive” bonuses paid to Superintendent Bart Banfield.ĭuring a 40-minute press conference, flanked by agency investigators, State Superintendent of Education Joy Hofmeister outlined extensive findings about how the controversial charter schools appear to have manipulated student enrollment and attendance data to retain per-pupil payments from the state agency.
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