It is a fact that state agencies and departments are responsible for state owned equipment, and are accountable to Oklahoma tax-payers as to how tax dollars are spent. Article 10 section 15 of the Oklahoma Constitution states in part "... the credit of the State shall not be given, pledged, or loaned to any individual... nor shall the State.. make donation by gift..." In addition, State Law 70-16-121 states in part "... all textbooks.. shall be owned by such (school) districts...". The implication is that all school equipment and non-perishable materials are owned by the State, and it is illegal to gift such educational items to any individual, company, association, or corporation. The Oklahoma State Department of Education and Oklahoma public schools must account for all "state-owned" equipment such as computers, textbooks, band instruments, sports uniforms, etc... In addition, all school equipment and educational materials purchased by schools with federal dollars must be accountable to the federal government and tax-payers. All state and federal school materials and equipment must be inventoried each year to ensure tax-payer transparency and accountability.
It is an advertised fact that Epic Virtual Charter School provides (gifts) each enrolled student $900 to be placed in the student's education checking account - for purchasing computers, textbooks, private voice or sports lessons, etc... Since these items are not inventoried as "school owned", they must be considered gifts.
Am I missing something in this Epic analysis, or is this Epic practice highly illegal?
Update: Evidently, I did miss something - Gifting is all perfectly legal and here's how: Public Schools typically have old equipment, textbooks, computers, buses, etc... which must be thrown away or sold to the general public. Before trashing or selling though, the school must declare the unneeded items as "surplus". It's a good law, otherwise, schools might give perfectly good, usable items away to anyone, and avoid accountability for taxpayer dollars. Epic has evidently discovered a loophole in accountability laws - It simply declares equipment and education materials provided to students via checking accounts as "surplus equipment". When students do not return state owned equipment when exiting Epic, it simply declares the "gift" as surplus. Abracadabra.. it has now circumvented the "gifting law", and it's all perfectly legal.
There is nothing illegal here, Jim. It's state law that materials and equipment be inventoried and they are at EPIC. We undergo state and federal audits just as you do at Blanchard and we have clean audits. We also have the same state and national accreditation as you do at Blanchard. You blog about us a lot during the school day. So feel free to give me a call any time you have a question or concern and I will be happy to address your questions. My contact information is on the EPIC website. Best, Shelly Hickman, M.Ed., Assistant Superintendent
ReplyDeleteCan you provide the inventories of the State and federal equipment - such as computers, textbooks, etc... paid for with taxpayer dollars,and allow inspection of those inventoried education materials? We are especially interested in the non-perishable tools and equipment checked in by students as they exit..
DeleteI'd also like you to comment concerning our "white paper" concerns?
Delete... and please provide your opinion of Senator Sharp's "accountability" bills???
DeleteWe are preparing a response on your white paper. I've already told Dr. Deering about several errors and misunderstandings. For example, if CCOSA was having regular dialogue with us as we have requested, they would know the SDE allows us to submit our accreditation application differently because the application doesn't really gel with a blended learning charter like ours versus a brick and mortar. If we were having regular dialogue, you would know our class size is about 27:1 student to teacher ratio, not the outlandish 2000:1 in your white paper. Regardless, so organizations and individuals don't make the same mistakes as you did with our accreditation application data, we will submit our data exactly as brick and mortars do this year, which will result in our application being 23,000 pages long. We will also have our response ready by the first of the year and distribute to you and lawmakers. Here is a link to an editorial in today's newspaper that counters Sen. Sharp's 'accountability' bills: https://newsok.com/article/5618150/student-needs-matter-more-than-school-delivery-model
ReplyDeleteThank you very much... I look forward to reading your response..
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