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The superintendent of the state’s largest online charter school stepped down this week amid a massive downsizing. Another top administrator resigned in mid-April.
And the Statewide Charter School Board is now investigating the school’s fiscal integrity, reported the Tulsa World’s Andrea Eger. As Epic’s charter authorizer, the board oversees the school and its finances.
Epic eliminated 357 teaching and administrative jobs last week and announced plans to shutter its in-person learning centers. It had already trimmed 144 jobs and implemented pay cuts in October.
Epic Charter Schools announced Monday that superintendent Bart Banfield resigned. Banfield became superintendent in 2019 as the school faced criminal investigations, a forensic audit and threat of closure.
Deputy Superintendent of Finance Jeanise Wynn has also resigned.
Epic hired Wynn in 2021, four months after the state auditor released a scathing investigative audit. Those findings led the state to charge the school’s two co-founders, David Chaney and Ben Harris, and chief financial officer, Josh Brock, with embezzlement and other financial crimes.
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— Jennifer Palmer
Recommended Reading
- Gov. Kevin Stitt signed two bills aimed at retaining public school teachers. One opens eligibility to Oklahoma’s Promise to teachers who have taught in Oklahoma schools at least 10 years. The other provides teachers step raises for an additional 10 years. [KGOU]
- Oklahoma’s public colleges and universities are incentivizing students to become the next generation of educators to shore up the state’s teacher pipeline. [Oklahoma Voice]
- Pay it forward programs give college students zero percent, no-fee-loans. When the money is repaid, it’s recycled for future students. The programs have been unsuccessfully proposed in half the nation’s state legislatures, but charitable foundations are piloting the idea. [The Hechinger Report]
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