Epic California had 626 students in 2019 in Oklahoma, Epic reports a current enrollment of 40,810 students – and growing daily as families seek out an online option amid the COVID-19 pandemic. One Model, Two StatesĮpic operates as a public online charter school in both states, but its student population is much larger in Oklahoma. Oklahoma regulators are pushing to examine the spending, saying the information should be public. Students receive $1,000 in Oklahoma and $1,500 in California and can receive bonuses for referring additional students to the school. Students, parents and school officials have said the learning fund is a major draw to enroll in Epic. It does so by outsourcing those services to private vendors. Home schooling families and groups are among those Epic has recruited in Oklahoma to join the school by offering the learning fund, an Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent alleged in a search-warrant affidavit filed last summer.Įpic and its supporters say the learning fund gives its students access to the kinds of activities that students in traditional school districts receive. The following year, the same co-op and a private “enrichment center” that also caters to students who are home-schooled received more than 70% of the funds. Families request the items or classes, and Epic makes the purchase using state dollars the school receives per student.Īccording to the records, Epic Charter School California in 2017-18 paid more than a half-million dollars from its learning fund to a home-school co-op that offers sectarian and non-sectarian programs - accounting for 72% of spending from the fund. The records show the amounts that Epic paid per student to vendors through its “learning fund,” which Epic describes as a way for families to select books, supplemental items, technology and extracurricular lessons in sports and fine arts. The department provided two years of data, for 2017-19, to Oklahoma Watch in response to a public records request. Attorneys for the company have said it has no desire to be secretive, but releasing the information publicly will compromise its entire business model.īut Epic’s virtual school in California has already supplied details about similar spending to the Orange County Department of Education. The dispute is a central part of a legal battle between the school’s management company , Epic Youth Services, and state auditors. The company that manages Epic Charter Schools in Oklahoma refuses to provide state auditors details about how it spends millions of dollars provided by the state to pay for students’ extra activities.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |