OKLAHOMA CITY - Oklahoma’s largest online charter school issuing a state senator with a history of questioning its administrative practices.
Alleging slander and libel, attorneys with Epic Charter Schools filed a civil lawsuit against state Sen. Ron Sharp (R-Shawnee) in Oklahoma County District Court Tuesday, Dec. 10. According to court documents, the school is seeking more than $75,000 in damages.
A former public school teacher and a member of the Senate’s Education Subcommittee on Appropriations, Sharp has publicly challenged how student attendance is monitored at the online charter school.
Back in September, the online charter school sent the state senator a cease and desist letter in response to several press releases published by his office. Sharp’s press statements questioned how Epic could receive state aid in previous school years for up to 4,000 secondary students enrolled at its blended learning centers in Tulsa and Oklahoma counties.
As per Epic’s website, the blended learning sites were limited to early childhood and elementary students until the 2019-2020 academic year.
Excluding enrollment numbers from those blended learning sites, Epic Charter School is now the state’s seventh largest school district, trailing only Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Edmond, Moore, Putnam City, and Broken Arrow. The school is also currently under investigation by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation for allegations of forgery, embezzlement, racketeering and obtaining money by false pretenses.
In the complaint, Norman based Epic attorney William Hickman alleges that Sharp has knowingly made inaccurate, misleading statements about the school both in the press and to state agencies.
“Sharp’s statements have exposed Plaintiff, its staff, teachers, parents and students to public hatred, contempt and ridicule; and Sharp’s statements have tended to deprive Plaintiff of public confidence in its mission; and Sharp’s statements have injured Plaintiff,” Hickman wrote in the initial complaint.
As of noon Friday, no court date has been set on the matter.
During the 2019 legislative session, the Shawnee Republican authored legislation that would have tied virtual schools’ state aid funding to course completion, but the bill did not pass. Along with sponsoring two interim studies on the matter, Sharp filed two bills in November for the upcoming legislative session specifically addressing oversight of charter schools.
As drafted, SB 1099 would require sponsors of brick-and-mortar charters to conduct reviews at least once a year of the school’s state aid allocation, compliance with academic calendar requirements, student testing performance, itemized expenditures with a management organization, the cost of administrative services, the teacher salary schedule, the certification status of teachers and whether teachers are employed by the charter school or a management organization.
Its sister bill, SB 1100, would extend those same requirements to virtual charter schools, with the review responsibilities falling to the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board.
“As legislators, it’s our job to ensure Oklahomans’ tax dollars are spent efficiently,” Sharp said. “We must demand the same accountability of our state public charter schools as we do from any other state agency. These changes will help ensure our virtual and brick-and-mortar charter schools are utilizing state funds legally and providing a high quality education for Oklahoma’s youth that’s resulting in high performance.”