“These allegations are extremely serious and disturbing,” State Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister said in a statement. The school had more than 21,000 students enrolled last year and received more than $113 million in state funding in fiscal year 2019, according to figures from the Oklahoma State Department of Education. “We are confident the facts will once again vindicate our team.”Įpic is a free, public school for children in pre-kindergarten through grade 12 that has enjoyed explosive growth since it was founded by Chaney and Harris in 2011. “We will continue to cooperate with investigators, as we have throughout the history of our school,” the statement read. The OSBI’s investigation is ongoing, and formal charges have not been filed.Įpic did not make Chaney or Harris available for an interview, but released a statement from the two men on Wednesday saying they dispute the allegations in the affidavit and that they’ve cooperated fully with investigators for more than five years. The existence of the affidavit was first reported by The Oklahoman. The two men operated Epic Youth Services, a for-profit limited liability company, which contracted with the school to oversee operations and received a portion of the school’s state-appropriated funds. “Ghost students were students enrolled in Epic that received little or no instruction from Epic teachers.” “Ben Harris and David Chaney inflated the number of students reported to (the Oklahoma State Department of Education) by enrolling and/or retaining ‘ghost students,’” Johnson wrote. In the affidavit, Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent Tommy Johnson wrote the school’s founders, David Chaney and Ben Harris, split illegal profits of more than $10 million between 20.
Investigators seized a laptop and mobile phone during their search.
Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent Tommy Johnson outlined the allegations in an affidavit for a search warrant of an Epic teacher’s home filed late Monday in Oklahoma County. OKLAHOMA CITY - The founders of Oklahoma’s largest virtual charter school embezzled millions of dollars in state funds through an illegal scheme that involved the use of “ghost students” to artificially inflate enrollment numbers, investigators allege. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated.
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