The Anadarko Daily News

d crime. No charges had been filed as

of press time.
ct Trial set for battle
Sep n
10 a- over funds from
S, state charter school
2020 y
m- OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A
Page judge has set a trial date for a legal
002 e
s battle involving Oklahoma's at-
Clip
resized e tempt to review financial records
79%
” from a private company that man-
as ages a public charter school.
u- District Judge Natalie Mai set the
t- trial date for Dec. 16, The Oklaho-
p man reported Wednesday.
et State Auditor and Inspector
y Cindy Byrd said Epic Youth Serv-
a ices, which manages Epic Charter
Schools, has refused to provide her
as office with records of Epic’s Learn-
d ing Fund— a bank account that
pays $1,000 per student for ex-
as tracurricular activities, technology
d costs and supplemental curricula.
y Byrd has tried obtaining those
document as part of an audit of the
school and company at the request
of Gov. Kevin Stitt. But Epic Youth
s maintains that the records are pri-
s vate.
State investigators alleged Epic
u- used the fund to embezzle taxpayer
or funds. Epic has denied any wrong-
h doing.
o Attorneys representing Epic
e Youth said those funds are no
m longer public once they’re paid to a
s private company, and they
o- shouldn’t be submitted for the au-
at dit.
0 The Oklahoma Statewide Virtual
e Charter School Board, which over-
m. sees the Epic One-on-One virtual
e, school, argued in a friend-of-the-
nt court brief that state auditors should
d- have access to those records.
o-
al
e
Thought for Today
Property of OPS News Tracker and members of the Oklahoma Press Association.
 The Lawton Constitution

Sep
Trial set for battle over
10

2020

Page
funds from charter school
A003
Clip
resized
The Associated Press per student for extracur-
106%
ricular activities, technol-
OKLAHOMA CITY ogy costs and supplemen-
— A judge has set a trial tal curricula.
date for a legal battle in- Byrd has tried obtaining
volving Oklahoma’s at- those document as part of
tempt to review financial an audit of the school and
records from a private company at the request of
company that manages a Gov. Kevin Stitt. But Epic
public charter school. Youth maintains that the
District Judge Natalie records are private.
Mai set the trial date for State investigators al-
Dec. 16, The Oklahoman leged Epic used the fund
reported Wednesday. to embezzle taxpayer
State Auditor and In- funds. Epic has denied any
spector Cindy Byrd said wrongdoing.
Epic Youth Ser vices, Attorneys represent-
which manages Epic ing Epic Youth said those
Charter Schools, has re- funds are no longer pub-
fused to provide her of- lic once they’re paid to a
fice with records of Epic’s private company, and they
Learning Fund— a bank shouldn’t be submitted for
account that pays $1,000 the audit.

Property of OPS News Tracker and members of the Oklahoma Press Association.
 Clip
Sep 2020 Page resized
10 A006 49%
McAlester News-Capital
Tulsa district has fewer students, but wants more money
By RAY CARTER
DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR
INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM
The Tulsa Public
Schools (TPS) district is
not offering in-person in-
struction to any students
for at least nine weeks,
which means the district
will potentially save mil-
lions on transportation
costs, utilities, and simi-
lar expenses. The district
also expects to have few-
er students to educate
this year, further lower-
ing expenses. And TPS
has received millions in
extra federal funding to
cover COVID-19 costs.
But a Tulsa school offi-
cial told the Oklahoma
State Board of Education
on Thursday that the dis-
trict needs a dramatic
increase in state appro-
priations anyway.
“There is a very serious
funding issue upon us,”
said Andrea Castañeda,
chief innovation officer at
Tulsa Public Schools.
Castañeda said the dis-
trict is struggling with
the cost of potentially
providing multiple ven-
ues for education and de-
clared in a presentation
that “without supplemen-
tal funding, Oklahoma
districts will be facing a
FY21 funding crisis.”
“It costs us more to run
a distance-learning mod-
el or a blended model or
simultaneous models
than it does to run a
s ch o o l - b a s e d m o d e l ,”
Castañeda said. “I believe
it is almost an inescap-
able fact that, because we
do not have the efficien-
cies of scale, we are run-
ning multiple school sys-
tems at the same time
and that is more expen-
sive.”
H o w e v e r, T u l s a i s
among the 7.5 percent of
Oklahoma schools that
are providing no in-per-
son instruction to stu-
dents at the start of the
school year or a “blended”
model that includes both
online and in-person in-
struction, according to an
Oklahoma State Depart-
ment of Education survey
of districts. Castañeda
said the district will not
provide in-person in-
struction until Novem-
ber, if not later.
It is estimated that last
spring’s shutdown of
school sites may have
generated as much as
$300 million in savings
on things like transporta-
tion and utilities at all
schools combined.
In the spring, Tulsa ad-
dressed “digital divide”
challenges in educating
low-income children on-
line by using bond financ-
ing for technology pur-
chases, and did not have
to draw down money
from either savings or
through diverting funds
from other uses.
The district also in-
creased its carryover sav-
ings by 150 percent due
to the savings realized by
the spring closure of
physical sites. Additional
Property of OPS News Tracker and members of the Oklahoma Press Association.
savings are expected
from the closure of schools
during the first nine
weeks of this school year.
Castañeda indicated
that TPS officials’ deci-
sion to not provide in-per-
son instruction has creat-
ed increased financial
burden for the district in
certain areas. She said
the cost of providing
lunches to children in the
free-and-reduced lunch
program is more expen-
sive when in-person
learning is not provided,
and that cost exceeds
that amount paid by the
federal government for
the lunch program.
“It costs far more to
p a ck a g e g r a b - a n d - g o
meals and serve them at
a curbside than it does in
a cafeteria line,” Castañe-
da said.
While schools have re-
ceived windfall funding
from the federal Corona-
virus Aid Relief and Eco-
nomic Security (CARES)
Act, which covers the cost
of unanticipated expens-
es caused by the pandem-
ic, Castañeda said it
“doesn’t keep our core
expenses whole” in the
Tulsa school district. TPS
received $16.2 million in
CARES Act funding this
year.
At the same time, the
district is losing students.
“On the enrollment
front, we are projecting
an enrollment decline,”
Castañeda said.
However, she said it is
“very difficult” for the
district to provide any
estimate on enrollment,
saying officials believe
many families are choos-
ing not to enroll or only
partially enroll due to the
perception that there is
less reason to take action
when no in-person in-
struction is being provid-
ed.
However, declining en-
rollment can translate
into a two-year windfall
for public schools under
Oklahoma’s funding for-
mula for state appropria-
tions.
Oklahoma law distrib-
utes state school funding
based on several factors,
including “the highest
weighted average daily
membership for the
school district of the two
(2) preceding school
years.” The use of the
highest average daily
membership (ADM) fig-
ure from prior years
means districts like Tul-
sa continue to receive
money for students who
no longer attend classes
in the district, informally
referred to as “ghost stu-
dents.”
As a result, in districts
the size of Tulsa, schools
may receive funding for
hundreds, or even thou-
sands, of students who no
longer attend. Enroll-
ment in Tulsa Public
Schools declined from
41,224 in 2011 to 37,433
students in 2018. Any
additional enrollment de-
cline this year would not
result in a reduced state
appropriation to the dis-
trict and could therefore
effectively boost per-pu-
pil state funding in the
district.
Castañeda said roughly
5,500 students are en-
rolled in the district’s
year-round virtual acade-
my and said that has also
increased costs.
“It has to be staffed in-
dependently,” Castañeda
said. “But we do not have
enough teachers in our
classrooms to release
them without hiring
more teachers to staff the
academy. So what this
means is that we’ve actu-
ally had to add almost
three dozen additional
teachers plus an admin-
istrative team to serve
the same number of kids.”
Even as Castañeda de-
cried the cost of providing
virtual education to Tul-
sa students, she also com-
plained that students can
choose to instead enroll
in statewide online char-
ter schools, singling out
EPIC Charter Schools,
the state’s largest online
K-12 education provider.
EPIC has seen surging
enrollment after last
spring’s shutdown and
the continuation of phys-
ical closure in districts
like Tulsa.
“We may be losing stu-
dents very, very quickly
to EPIC,” Castañeda said.
She said the student
“benefit or the harm” that
comes with increased en-
rollment in EPIC’s online
courses “scales with” the
school.
Oklahoma State School
Board member Jennifer
Monies asked Castañeda
if Tulsa officials knew
why “parents would be
choosing to go to EPIC
versus your full virtual
academy.”
Castañeda said the dis-
trict is polling parents.
The online programs
offered by many Oklaho-
ma school districts during
last spring’s shutdown
have been widely criti-
cized as subpar or worse,
and Castañeda acknowl-
edged that the shutdown
has had severe, negative
impact on some low-in-
come children in Tulsa
schools.
“We are anticipating,
based on national data,
that our least-reached
students will have lost
approximately a year
more learning than would
have otherwise been the
case because of the
COVID-related interrup-
tions,” Castañeda said.
“So if I’m a student who
might otherwise have
been predicted to be two
years below grade level,
we’re anticipating that
that student will now be
approximately three
years below grade level.”
• This article is reprinted from the
Center for Independent Journalism
at the Oklahoma Council of Public
Affairs
 The Shawnee News-Star

e s sta .co S a ee e s Sta LOCAL NE

STATE NEWS BRIEFS

White House task an audit of the school and

force: Statewide
mask mandate
unnecessary
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP)
— The White House task
force on the coronavirus is
no longer recommending a
statewide mask mandate in
Oklahoma, according to the
Sep report released Wednesday
by the Oklahoma State De-
partment of Health.
11 The report, dated Sun-
day, instead recommends a
mask mandate in urban ar-
eas and in counties where
students and teachers in
public schools have tested
2020 positive for the virus.
The White House task
force had recommended a
statewide mask mandate
in each weekly report since
Page early August.
The report said there
were 146 new virus cases
A003 per 100,000 population in
the last week, compared to
a national average of 88
per 100,000.
Clip “Oklahoma is in the red
resized zone for cases, indicating
more than 100 new cases
per 100,000 population
24% last week, with the 9th
highest rate in the coun-
try,” and has the fourth
highest percentages of
positive tests at more than
10%, according to the re-
port
Gov. Kevin Stitt has
said he he will not issue a
statewide mandate and the
state Board of Education
declined to require masks
in schools as was proposed
by state Superintendent
Joy Hofmeister.
The White House task
force had recommended a
statewide mask mandate
in each weekly report since
early August.
RESTAURANT AND
BAR LIMITS
The city of Norman is
limiting restaurant and
bar seating capacities on
days when the University
of Oklahoma has a home
football game in an effort
to slow the spread of the
coronavirus.
The City Council on
Tuesday voted 7-1 to limit
capacity to 75% and require
patrons to be seated to be
served.
The university previ-
ously banned on-campus
tailgating and is limiting
stadium capacity to about
25% of Oklahoma Memo-
rial Stadium’s more than
86,000 seats.
CORONAVIRUS
CASES
The Oklahoma State
Department of Health
on Wednesday reported
65,929 confirmed virus
cases and 863 deaths due
to COVID-19, the illness
caused by the virus, in-
creases of 876 cases and
nine deaths from Tuesday.
The actual number of cas-
es is likely higher because
many people haven’t been
tested, and studies suggest
people can be infected and
not feel sick.
The health department
reported 9,661 active virus
cases and that 55,405 peo-
ple have recovered.
For most people, the new
coronavirus causes mild or
moderate symptoms, such
as fever and a cough that
clear up in two to three
weeks. For some, especial-
ly older adults and people
with existing health prob-
lems, it can cause more
severe illness, including
pneumonia, and death.
company at the request of
Gov. Kevin Stitt. But Epic
Youth maintains that the
records are private.
State investigators al-
leged Epic used the fund to
embezzle taxpayer funds.
Epic has denied any wrong-
doing.
Attorneys representing
Epic Youth said those
funds are no longer pub-
lic once they’re paid to a
private company, and they
shouldn’t be submitted for
the audit.
The Oklahoma Statewide
Virtual Charter School
Board, which oversees the
Epic One-on-One virtual
school, argued in a friend-
of-the-court brief that state
auditors should have ac-
cess to those records.
Joe Exotic
formally requests 51 bison
pardon, main- relocated from
tains innocence North Rim of
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) Grand Canyon
— A former Oklahoma
zookeeper sentenced to
22 years in prison for his
role in a murder-for-hire
plot and violating federal
wildlife laws has formally
requested a pardon.
Attorneys for Joseph
Maldonado-Passage, also
NQRZQDV³-RH([RWLF´¿OHG
his application Tuesday
with the U.S. Department
of Justice. In it, attorneys
for Maldonado-Passage,
57, say he maintains his
innocence and that he was
“railroaded and betrayed”
by others.
“Joseph is scheduled to
be released from (Bureau
of Prisons) custody in
2037; however, with his
comprised health, he will
likely die in prison,” attor-
neys wrote in the 257-page
application. “He humbly
requests a pardon to cor-
rect the injustices he has
experienced and to have
the opportunity to return
to providing meaningful
contributions to his com-
munity.”
The application also
includes several charac-
ter affidavits, letters of
support and various trial
documents. A spokeswom-
an for the Department of
Justice said it would be
premature to comment on
the application.
Maldonado-Passage was
convicted last year of trying
to arrange the killing of a
Florida animal sanctuary
founder, Carole Baskin,
who criticized his treat-
ment of animals. Baskin
wasn’t harmed. Maldona-
do-Passage also was con-
YLFWHGRINLOOLQJ¿YHWLJHUV
selling tiger cubs and falsi-
fying wildlife records.
The blond mullet-wear-
ing zookeeper, known for
his expletive-laden rants on
YouTube and a failed 2018
Oklahoma gubernatorial
campaign, is prominently
featured in the popular
1HWÀL[ GRFXPHQWDU\ ³7L-
ger King: Murder, Mayhem
and Madness.”
Maldonado-Passage is
currently housed at the
Federal Medical Center,
a 1,500-inmate facility in
Forth Worth, Texas, prison
records show.
GRAND CANYON NA-
TIONAL PARK, Ariz. (AP)
— Dozens of bison have
been relocated from the
North Rim of the Grand
Canyon to Native American
lands in Kansas, Nebras-
ka Oklahoma and South
Dakota.
A roundup begun in late
August and completed ear-
lier this month led to the
transfer of 51 bison to the
InterTribal Buffalo Coun-
cil, Grand Canyon National
3DUNRI¿FLDOVVDLG
The bison were then suc-
cessfully transported to the
Prairie Band Potawatomi
Nation in Kansas, the Flan-
dreau Santee Sioux Tribe in
South Dakota, the Santee
Sioux Tribe in Nebraska
and the Modoc Nation in
2NODKRPD SDUN RI¿FLDOV
said.
The relocations were
part of an effort to reduce
the size of the herd that
roams the Kaibab Plateau
and follow a 2019 pilot
program in which 31 bison
were relocated to the Qua-
paw Tribe in Oklahoma.
NPS biologists estimate
that the North Rim bison
herd has grown from ap-
proximately 100 bison,
brought to the House Rock
Wildlife Area in the early
1900s, to between 400 to
600 bison.

Trial set for battle

over funds from
Oklahoma charter
GENERAL GENERAL GENERAL
school EMPLOYMENT EMPLOYMENT EMPLOYMENT
OKLAHOMA CITY
(AP) — A judge has set a Need 3
GATEWAY TO PREVENTION Dishwashers.
trial date for a legal bat-
& RECOVERY Starting pay above
tle involving Oklahoma’s
DWWHPSW WR UHYLHZ ¿QDQ- average.
We are currently looking for a
cial records from a private Apply at
company that manages a THERAPIST Curtis Watsons
public charter school. on McLoud Rd
to work in our Shawnee Office. Two 405-386-2900
District Judge Natalie
positions are currently available. Full
Mai set the trial date for
time and part time. This person must
Dec. 16, The Oklahoman have a LADC, LPC, LMFT, LCSW, or
reported Wednesday. be actively seeking certification or li-
State Auditor and In- censure from respective boards. Sub-
spector Cindy Byrd said stance abuse training, education and
Epic Youth Services, which experience are important. The Thera-
manages Epic Charter pist will be required to do assessments, LAWN & GARDEN
Schools, has refused to treatment plans, group and individual
provide her office with therapy and case management serv- Tilt Trailer,
records of Epic’s Learning ices. 53”x10-ft, all
Fund— a bank account that metal, $560,
To apply, please email your resume to JD zero turn 42”
pays $1,000 per student for
mhampton@gatewaytoprevention.org, Z335E, 99 hrs.,
extracurricular activities, fax to 405-275-5132, or deliver in per-
technology costs and sup- $1200,
son to 1010 East 45th Street, JD E170 48”,
plemental curricula. Shawnee. Applications are also avail- 76 hrs., $900,
Byrd has tried obtaining able at this location. 405-249-5351
those document as part of

Property of OPS News Tracker and members of the Oklahoma Press Association.