Have a story idea for Nuria? She can be reached at or on Twitter at Support Nuria’s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at /subscribe. Reporter Nuria Martinez-Keel covers K-12 and higher education throughout the state of Oklahoma. "On behalf of the school, I wanted to apologize to him for what he went through." "This school was weaponized back previously with the prior management company and (was) used inappropriately, really, against Sen. Epic also must pay Sharp $35,000 to cover his attorney fees.Įpic's school board agreed Wednesday to pay Sharp. Sharp was Epic Charter Schools' most vocal critic in the state Legislature while he held office.Īn Oklahoma County district judge dismissed the lawsuit and awarded Sharp $500,000 in an anti-SLAPP ruling. Ron Sharp, R-Shawnee, speaks in a Senate Education Committee meeting at the State Capitol in Oklahoma City on Feb. It has authorized Epic One-on-One since 2015.įormer state Sen. Epic Charter Schools was placed on probation after a June report released by the Oklahoma State Department of Education noted a number of issues with the district, including an alleged misuse of. The consolidated Epic will now answer to only one authorizer, the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, a small state agency that oversees Oklahoma's six virtual charter schools. Rose State earned $3.7 million from Epic over the 2015-2020 fiscal years. A charter school authorizer earns 3% of the school's state revenue in exchange for giving oversight and approving a charter's right to operate in Oklahoma. Oklahoma law prohibits money appropriated to one school district from flowing to another.Ī third entity in charge of Epic Blended, Rose State College, will no longer authorize the school. The Oklahoma State Department of Education confirmed its approval of the consolidation on Friday.Īnother agency overseeing Epic, the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, encouraged the merger as a way to avoid improper commingling of funds between the two districts. "It takes a tremendous amount of administrative burden off this team trying to navigate two school districts when we were always operating really as one." "This is a huge step forward," Campbell said during the board meeting. Budgets for both districts have combined into one $266 million pot.īoard Chairperson Paul Campbell said Epic projects the consolidation could save at least $4 million through improved efficiency. Employees will work for one school district instead of two. Your former brick & mortar employer would rather train a monkey to do your job than to ever take you back.Epic students will no longer enroll in one branch or the other. There is no way to advance unless you're a family or friend of the founders. Everything seems very unprofessional and kind of thrown together with just enough to get by with, barely. The majority of the "superintendent" and "director" positions are filled with the owners' buddies, that really have no idea what they're doing. They will tease you with this "bonus", but then without any notice because you're not contracted or paid a guaranteed salary, that bonus structure changes and you realize all those long hours, holidays, weekends, summers, etc. They've found a very clever way to have you work a lot more hours for no extra money. Expect to be working nights and weekends without any extra pay. Not only will you be working more throughout the year for less money, but you'll be working very long hours, too. Several teachers made the move from brick & mortar to Epic thinking they'd make more money, but the truth is they've been there over a year and they still aren't even close to having the amount of students they were promised, so they could make more money and now they make less money than when they left "real school" and they have to work all summer, no spring break, no fall break and only a week around Christmas. They sales pitch you that you'll have "this" amount of students and make "this" amount of money. You are paid based on how many students you have.
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