Always do right

   Clarence G. Oliver, Jr., Ed.D. authored LEADING WITH INTEGRITY, Reflections on Legal, Moral and Ethical Issues in School Administration in 2015. This book is the school administrator's guidebook regarding ethical decision making and issues regarding our public schools. Most Oklahoma school superintendents refer to the insights of Dr. Oliver whenever deciding whether or not any particular decision is truly ethical... and usually daily. The first page of Leading... is comprised of a single quote - "Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest." - Mark Twain (Samuel Longhorne Clemens) 1835-1910, so it surprises none that my single New Year's resolution is to always do right. To "always do right" concerning our traditional public schools, all public school students and teachers is always on the mind of most school superintendents... and on my mind as I speak and compose my writings. Of course, that which is ethical to each is a personal decision, for an action or decision which is deemed unethical by one - may be completely acceptable and ethical to another. It is with these thoughts that the following must be considered as I compose the day after Christmas 2018...
   This article/post is the sixth in a series of following taxpayer dollars... and most certainly won't be the last. I wondered in the last article/blog as to how virtual charter schools inventoried state and federal equipment and school non-perishable materials, if they did so at all. A virtual school official answered that all state owned and federal equipment is inventoried as required by law, and I was off-base for even asking the question. I also lamented that if schools provide state (taxpayer) owned equipment and non-perishable items to private individuals free of charge, it amounts to "gifting" which is illegal according to state statute and the Oklahoma Constitution.
   Since the last "follow the money" article More Epic Questions, I have been provided a list of  inventoried state and federally owned computers that virtual charter schools are responsible for. The inventoried items are listed on over 500 pages with 68 items per page. The inventoried computers (laptops) comprise approximately 90% of the inventoried items and costs the state approximately $900 each. The more than 35,000 state-owned Epic laptops are inventoried, and their total value might surpass $17 million. The inventoried laptops are primarily coded active, dead, in progress, repairing, retrieval, returned to epic, or "unrecoverable". Many state officials believe the "unrecoverable" laptops (approximately 8,666) constitute "gifted" laptops, resulting in more than $7 million illegally gifted to private individuals. The number of unrecoverable laptops (over 8.000) match up remarkably similar to the number of transfer students which check in to Epic, then leave within a short period of time (2 or 3 months). Epic collects the state aid (around $4,000 per student) for educating the student, and provides the $900 for a laptop or karate lessons. The corporate profit becomes $4,000 - $900 = $3,100 or thereabouts. It's a win-win for both Epic and gift recipients, and it's all perfectly legal.. This is the predicted legal "loophole" we spoke about in More Questions.
   Most people who attended public schools or worked in them remember checking out school-owned textbooks, laptops, and other non-perishable items from the school or to students. At the end of the school year, the items were always checked back in. When a federal or state owned item was not accounted for, the student or teacher was told the item must be paid for. Every now and then, a textbook was lost and the student was deemed responsible. Most students and school employees did pay for the lost school items, but did not know the items could be "written off" as unrecoverable. (Traditional public schools do not make a habit of writing off state-owned equipment as unrecoverable, en mass.)
   It would be a safe bet to say that over 8,000 state-owned laptops have been illegally gifted to individuals and written off as unrecoverable. One may also be correct in believing the 8,000 + student recipients would say that Epic officials did give them the laptops, and the students believe the laptops were never to be returned to the state.
   One virtual charter school, Connections Academy, has not written off computers (laptops) as unrecoverable, but simply states that it "maintains no inventory purchased with state funds" as it relies on donations from Pearson, (the contracted education provider for Connections).