The Ardmoreite

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EDUCATION

Jul
Fudging the numbers
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2019

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Epic Charter Schools in Oklahoma City. GATEHOUSE MEDIA

Epic embezzled millions with ‘ghost students,’ OSBI says

By Nuria Martinez-Keel
The Oklahoman
A state investigation has
found Epic Charter Schools,
the state’s largest virtual
charter school system, em-
bezzled millions in state
funds by illegally inflating
enrollment counts with
“ghost students.”
The Oklahoma State Bu-
reau of Investigation alleged
Epic co-founders David
Chaney and Ben Harris “de-
vised a scheme to use their
positions as public officers
to unlawfully derive prof-
its from state appropriated
funds.”
An OSBI agent made the
allegations in a search war-
rant that sought evidence
of embezzlement, obtaining
money by false pretenses and
racketeering.
Investigators reported
Chaney and Harris “created
a system of financial gain at
Epic” when they founded
the virtual charter school
in 2010. The two co-found-
ers have managed the vir-
tual charter school through
a for-profit company, Epic
Youth Services, which re-
ceives a portion of Epic’s
state funds.
Epic, which enrolled just
under 20,000 students last
year, is a public charter
school that receives state
education funding for each
student enrolled. There is
no cost to students to attend.
Epic did not return a re-
quest for comment Tuesday
afternoon.
Between 2013 and 2018,
Chaney and Harris unlaw-
fully received $10 million
in profits from Epic Youth
Services and split the total,
investigators said.
OSBI agents reported-
ly found dozens of “ghost
students” counted in Epic’s
enrollment numbers, though
they were home schooled or
also attended private and
sectarian schools, according
to the search warrant, which
was filed Tuesday in Oklaho-
ma County District Court.
These students were en-
rolled in Epic but “received
little or no instruction from
SEE EPIC, PAGE 2A

Property of OPS News Tracker and members of the Oklahoma Press Association.
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Jul 2019 Page resized From
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The Ardmoreite
n
ct EPIC
is Continued from Page 1A
le
e Epic teachers.”
ve “Ben Harris and Da-
vid Chaney enticed ghost
er students to enroll in Epic
as by offering each student
ly on annual learning fund
ranging from $800 to
m- $1,000,” OSBI reported in
the warrant. “…The par-
ents of many of the home
school students admitted
they enrolled their chil-
dren in Epic to receive the
$800 learning fund with-
out any intent to receive
instruction from Epic.”
Several parents refused
instruction from Epic
teachers but continued to
y accept the $800 learning
fund and expenses, inves-
tigators found. Many Epic
teachers dubbed these
families “members of the
$800 club,” investigators
said.
Chaney reportedly es-
timated during a board
meeting in April 2013
that 30% of Epic students
were home schooled. The
OSBI alleged Chaney was
personally involved in re-
Property of OPS News Tracker and members of the Oklahoma Press Association.
cruiting homeschool, pri-
vate and sectarian school
students for dual enroll-
ment in Epic.
Investigators spoke
with multiple parents,
schools and daycare
centers that all reported
Epic incentivized them
to dual enroll children.
Many children were en-
rolled at Epic without
their parents’ knowledge
or consent, according to
the warrant.
One woman, whom in-
vestigators only identified
by her initials LDW, oper-
ated a sectarian school in
Sapulpa when Epic pre-
sented her with an oppor-
tunity for an “economic
windfall.” The woman
converted her school to a
learning center under the
“Epic model” to take ad-
vantage of the economic
benefits, agents reported.
LDW allowed students
to work on Epic assign-
ments for three hours to
get credit for a full school
day, though state law
requires six hours of in-
struction. LDW and her
staff were not certified
teachers. In fact, investi-
gators said LDW should
have been prohibited
from working on school
premises because she is
a convicted felon, having
pleaded guilty in 2010 to
mortgage fraud in Florida
federal court.
Ghost students were
not held to general Epic
policies for attendance
and academic standards,
investigators reported.
One teacher told the
OSBI that she was pres-
sured to drop poor-per-
forming students from
enrollment so they
wouldn’t count against
Epic’s standardized test
scores.
“The students were lat-
er re-enrolled without the
knowledge or consent of
their parents,” the search
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warrant states.
One student withdrew
from Epic when her fam-
ily moved to Portland,
Oregon, from Oklahoma
City in September 2017.
However, she was still
listed as an Epic student
through the 2017-18 and
2018-19 school years.
The student’s named
belonged to the roster
of Epic teacher Jenni-
fer Patton. OSBI agents
seized Patton’s computer
on Monday evening while
serving the search war-
rant.
The OSBI found Harris
allowed hundreds of stu-
dents to remain on Epic’s
rolls even though they no
longer attended Epic.
Drill
 The Edmond Sun
Astronaut launches excitement into 14th year ACE Camp
When most students fill
out an application for a
Jul summer aviation camp,
some really have no idea of
17 what to expect if they are
selected. Fifty-two students
from around the Oklahoma
City area, including several
2019 from Edmond, were among
the top candidates chosen
from over 100 submitted
Page applications.
Edmond students attend-
A007 ing are the following: Aaron
Pan, Heartland Middle
School; Addison Gibson,
Clip Deer Creek Middle School;
resized Emma Dindoyal, Sequoyah
Middle School; Jacob Meng,
32% Cheyenne Middle School;
Rena Cole, Epic Charter
School; Sam Ghazanfari,
Cimarron Middle School;
Avie Krebs, OCS; Benjamin
Aquino, homeschool;
Carson McCachern, Deer
Creek Middle School; Gavin
Bishop, homeschool;
Pranay Patlolla, Summit
Middle School; and Sourish
Pasula, Deer Creek Middle
School.
For the 14th consecutive
year, the Federal Aviation
Administration’s Mike
Monroney Aeronautical
Center and the Metro
Technology Center Aviation
Campus partnered together
to host an amazing aviation
and STEM (science, tech-
nology, engineering and
mathematics) experience
for some of the state’s mid-
dle school students.
Funding from the camp is
made possible by a grant
from the Oklahoma
Aeronautics Commission to
the Metro Technology
Center.
The goal of the camp is to
expose Oklahoma’s youth to
the kinds of careers avail-
able in STEM and inform
them about the dire need
for pilots, mechanics and air
traffic controllers in our avi-
ation and aerospace indus-
try.
Two weeks out of every
summer, campers converge
on the aviation campus of
Metro Tech, located north-
west of Will Rogers World
Airport. Twenty-six seventh
and eighth graders help to
comprise each camp. The
students participate in a
myriad of activities, reveal-
ing to them hundreds of dif-
ferent occupations in avia-
tion. The campers learn
about hot air balloons,
unmanned aerial systems,
rockets, aviation as it relates
to commercial, corporate
and military aircraft, heli-
copters, and that’s only the
beginning. They get hands-
on experience in naming
and understanding parts of
an airplane, learning how to
read an aeronautical chart,
gaining experience in rivet-
ing sheet metal, building
and coding robots, taxiing
an aircraft, and on the last
&ENPOE ] 
day of camp they learn
about NASA and astronomy.
Property of OPS News Tracker and members of the Oklahoma Press Association.
This year, both camps had
the fortunate opportunity to
have special guests visit the
camp. During both camps,
Astronaut Scott D. Altman,
who was the pilot of Space
Shuttle Columbia in 1998
during the STS-90, the
Neurolab mission, where
they studied the effects of
microgravity on the brain
and the human nervous
system, opted to pay a visit
to these camps. In 2000,
Altman was the pilot of
Atlantis during a 12-day
mission to prepare the
International Space Station
for the arrival of the first
permanent crew. On his
final two missions, he com-
manded Columbia in 2002,
which was the fourth mis-
sion to service the Hubble
Space Telescope. When he
commanded Atlantis on the
STS-125, it was the fifth and
final mission to service the
space telescope which
extended its useful lifetime.
“Scooter” as Altman is
often called, interacted with
each of the campers, giving
further insight into their
NASA and astronomy les-
sons while lending words of
encouragement along the
way. Many were intrigued to
learn that he had a role in
flying the F-14 for the film-
ing of the 1986 movie Top
Gun.
“It was incredible. Most
Navy pilots don’t get to buzz
an air traffic control tower,
like was done in that movie.
But since it was Hollywood,
they wanted nine different
takes,” Altman shrugs with a
smile.
During the second week
of ACE camp, Oklahoma
State Senator Adam Pugh of
Edmond participated in the
graduation activities.
Senator Pugh has served in
the Oklahoma Legislature
since 2016 and is a member
of the Senate
Appropriations and
Transportation Committees.
He brought his love of avia-
tion, his experience as a for-
mer member of the Air
Force E-3 AWACS crew and
shared the challenges of
growing up in a single-par-
ent home, getting into and
paying for college, and how
ROTC helped in his career
choices. Senator Pugh also
stayed to take pictures and
present each camper with
their certificate of comple-
tion.
“We are so fortunate to
have these vital partner-
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Amidst the campers, Jim Emory (a Quality Assurance Specialist with the FAA and Director of Wing Safety with the
Civil Air Patrol) squats down to demonstrate to the students the importance of checking the aircraft over thor-
oughly.
ships that reinforce our abil-
ity to provide the next gen-
eration with ideas, encour-
aging curiosity and innova-
tion, and inspiring our
future generations to pos-
sess skills that revolve
around STEM,” said
Michelle Coppedge, director
of the Mike Monroney
Aeronautical Center. “It is
such a rare opportunity to
get to talk to an astronaut,
so it’s very exciting that
these students get to learn
first-hand from someone
who’s been through the pro-
gram and has traveled to
space, and can speak direct-
ly about their experience.
We are honored for such
participation in our pro-
gram.
“Currently there is a
deficit of professionals with
the skills needed to keep our
industry moving forward,
while positively impacting
our economy. Research
indicates that we need to
produce a highly skilled and
educated workforce; one
that enables us as a nation
to better compete on a glob-
al scale,” Coppedge said.
“Hands on camps, like the
FAA’s and Metro
Technology’s Aviation
Career Education (ACE)
Camp help our young peo-
ple think critically, increase
their science literacy, and
provides them with life skills
for innovation, as proven by
making STEM-related activ-
$"5)0-*$ $)63$)
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ities fun and interesting.
“As parents and as mem-
bers of a community, we
have an obligation to help
raise our children to be
responsible and engaged
contributors to the well
being of our society.
Creative attention must be
devoted to our young peo-
ple to help spark their inter-
ests, mold their capacities
and decision-making capa-
bilities, all while awakening
them to some of the many
possibilities in our world.”
Employees from the Mike
Monroney Aeronautical
Center and the Metro
Technology Center Aviation
campus volunteer their
time and energy to assist
with this annual camp.
“This really is a win-win
partnership. The camp con-
cept has been fine-tuned
over the years, and we are
beginning to see that our
years of investing in this
program are finally paying
off,” said Tim Fannin, direc-
tor of the Metro Technology
Center Aviation Campus.
Former campers are mak-
ing decisions to follow a
career in occupations like
aerospace, engineering,
they are joining the military
and becoming aircraft
mechanics, and some are
training to become air traf-
fic controllers.
“It’s exciting when we
learn that someone has
found a career path that
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they are passionate about,
only to learn that it was this
camp that sparked their ini-
tial interest,” Fannin said.
During the second camp’s
graduation, a few returning
ACE Camp Alumni con-
tributed to their past partic-
ipation in the camp.
Brennan Myers, a former
camper sent a letter to
share his experience:
During camp, students
are required to do research
on an Oklahoma aviator
and Brennan chose
Thomas P. Stafford.
“I was so impressed with
our Oklahoma astronaut,
Thomas P. Stafford that I
read his book and wrote
many reports about his
career … As I look back
now, each of the (camp’s)
events changed my life in
one way or another. I start-
ed flight lessons at age 16,
and am completing my
private pilot certificate this
summer, and am attending
college to become a com-
mercial pilot. I like the idea
of flying for FedEx, as boxes
don’t care about turbu-
lence. I will become a pilot.
As for what I end up doing
with it, that has yet to be
written, but I assure you it
will be a career in aviation.”
Jacquelyn Harsha, a for-
mer camper and the
daughter of a retired U.S.
Army Lieutenant Colonel
made a personal appear-
ance at graduation and
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gave a testimony as to how
the camp helped further
shape her impressions
about aviation. Inspired to
be in the military, she
joined the Civil Air Patrol
when she was 12 years old
and worked her way up to
OK-81 Cadet Captain. She
recently earned a full ride
scholarship in the U.S. Air
Force ROTC program at
Oklahoma State University.
With aspirations of being
in the military and joining
the Space Corp, Jackie reit-
erates, “It’s important to
join everything you can,
to get a taste of it. There
are inspirations for us all
along the way.”
The camp solicits for
applications every spring
through the FAA’s
Aviation and Space
Education website and
through another partner,
the Oklahoma
Engineering Foundation.
Aviation is the second
largest industry in the
state of Oklahoma, and
the Mike Monroney
Aeronautical Center is the
4th largest employer in
Oklahoma City. According
to Victor Bird, Director of
the Oklahoma
Aeronautics Commission,
“There are almost 240,400
jobs in the state of
Oklahoma that are sup-
ported by or that benefit
from aviation and aero-
space.”