9/25/2023 0 Comments Paul campbell epic charter school![]() But when school officials wanted to hire more instructional staff, Harris and Chaney rejected the request, according to three sources. Internal disagreement also arose over how much money the school should spend on advertising, with some school officials questioning the nearly $2.6 million spent on an advertising blitz in 2019, including commercials, billboards, article placement in the state’s two largest newspapers and a promotional playground inside a mall. Over the past six years, the company funneled $125 million of Epic’s state funding to itself, including nearly $46 million in management fees. The situation was one of a growing number of disagreements between school officials and the management company’s owners – Ben Harris and David Chaney, who founded Epic before starting Epic Youth Services to manage the school’s operations. ![]() Epic grew to become Oklahoma’s largest school district during the pandemic. The management company told the school to take every student it could, bringing enrollment close to 60,000, up from about 38,000 students in July 2020. ![]() Some doubted the school could train enough new teachers and that an enrollment cap was necessary to avoid “growing beyond capacity,” worried one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicize internal conversations.īut more students meant more money to the owners of Epic Youth Services, the private company owned by the school’s founders that served as the school’s management organization and the recipient of 10 percent of all state funding that went to the school. Projections showed the potential to add as many as 25,000 new students.īut three senior staff members at the school told The Frontier they believed the prospect of nearly doubling the student count would be disastrous. Sharp will be owed more than $500,000 for damages and attorney fees per the settlement agreement.When the pandemic began sending thousands of parents in search of virtual learning options last year, the enrollment at Epic Charter Schools, already one of the state’s largest school systems, began to explode. “On behalf of the school I want to apologize to him for what he went through, because it was not easy I’m sure,” Campbell said. That was inappropriate, current school board chairman Paul Campbell said. Sharp was a vocal critic of Epic’s founders who recently faced criminal charges and was sued by them for defamation. The move was long in the works and was suggested by State Auditor Cindy Byrd in her audit report as a way to improve accountability.Īdditionally, the board voted to settle an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against former Republican Senator Ron Sharp. ![]() Previously, the two schools had been technically separate entities. The board voted to change the district’s name by dropping an “S” in their title and officially merging their online and blended schools. The governing board of the nonprofit Community Strategies Inc., which technically oversees the virtual charter behemoth changed the school’s name and buried the hatchet in a longtime dispute to the tune of $500,000. ![]() The board overseeing Epic Charter School was all about turning over a new leaf Wednesday night. ![]()
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