Epic Charter School Reaches Compliance Milestone With Virtual School Board Of Ed.

A two-year compliance process is coming to an end for Epic Charter Schools. 

Epic Charter School is now back in compliance with Oklahoma’s Statewide Virtual Charter School Board of Education. 

The news comes less than a month after the Department of Education placed them on probation. 

School leaders announced Tuesday evening they have taken more than 50 corrective actions. 

Those actions include:

1. Severing all ties with Epic Charter School's former management, Epic Youth Services and its founders
2. Establishing a new Board of Education comprised of business and civic leaders without any previous relationship to EYS management
3. Creating new checks and balances to strengthen internal controls and ensure fiduciary oversight by Epic's new Board of Education. This action included hiring a new Deputy Superintendent of Finance
4. Providing full transparency and accounting of the Learning Fund expenditures and balance
5. Consolidating two school districts, Epic One-on-One and Epic Blended Charter, which make up 60% and 40% of student enrollment.

“I think it’s really important to say that throughout this process over the last months we have been encourage by the way epic has responded,” said Dr. Robert Franklin, the Chairman of the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board. 

Epic Charter School’s took several steps to get in compliance including severing all ties with their previous management, establishing a new board, and consolidating Epic-One-on-One and Epic Blended Charter. 

“The big decision to separate from the management company was monumental. The reconfiguration of the board was not easy and those were things that have been very encouraging and the consolidation of two schools to one being that last tipping point that gets us to that place is again really encouraging,” said Dr. Franklin. 

The Epic Superintendent Bart Banfield, released a statement saying, “it has been a long road, but we are grateful for the patience and direction provided to us by the statewide virtual charter school board and its leadership.” 

“Our compliance auditor has been out monthly, doing important work and giving us feedback monthly,” said the Chairman of the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board. 

The district is also hiring a new Deputy Superintendent of Finance to strengthen transparency. 

“Hopefully, it allows them to do things with more fidelity, and to do it more efficiently and effectively serving with the confidence that the stakeholder and our taxpayers expect,” said Dr. Franklin.

School leaders said the ruling Tuesday was a result of commitment to transparency and organization-wide transformation.