Chaney for a time was also the school’s superintendent before ceding the position to Banfield in 2019. We need to contact that parent.”Įpic’s questionable attendance protocols originated from the school’s prior management, state officials said.Įpic’s co-founders, Ben Harris and David Chaney, operated the school for a decade through their company, Epic Youth Services. That’s a flag that something needs to happen. “If they weren’t doing the minimum, then they certainly weren’t being educated. “It then allows us to track students who were not engaged,” Kimball told the school board Wednesday. This could save teachers 16 hours a week they would have spent manually entering grades and attendance, said Roger Kimball, deputy superintendent of technology.įamilies are notified if a student completes no work after five, 10 and 14 days. Gradebook scores would funnel automatically into the school’s attendance system to count students present or absent for the day. The school plans to implement an automated system called Grade Passback to pull all assignments straight to teachers’ digital gradebooks. "It is conceivable that the algorithm was written to allow Epic to continue having students enrolled who, by law, should not have been," state investigators wrote. Officials said these students were then absent for another 14 consecutive days. Epic then could count these students toward its annual funding, the state reported. Investigators found almost half of those students advanced to the next grade level.Īn algorithm in the school’s online attendance system kept students enrolled who likely should have been withdrawn for too many absences, state officials said.Ībout 4,800 students were absent for 14 consecutive days but were counted present on the 15th day, the date when state law requires they be unenrolled for truancy, according to the state’s investigation. “But at the same time, we also recognize that based on all things we have been through over the last couple of years, there is a desire from a multitude of stakeholders to see more transparency in terms of what our students are doing on a daily basis and on a weekly basis.”Įpic Charter School attendance policy change a product of OSDE investigationĪn Oklahoma State Department of Education investigation found "troubling patterns” in Epic’s attendance data, state schools Superintendent Joy Hofmeister said in a June news conference.Ībout 5% of Epic students, or 3,400 schoolchildren, in the 2020-21 school year were absent 75% of the time they were enrolled, state officials wrote in a 76-page report released this summer.
“We still want to provide that flexibility that Epic has been known for,” he said. Kevin Stitt says some are blowing new law 'out of proportion' No longer is attendance based on the number of assignments students finish every quarter of the school year.Įpic Superintendent Bart Banfield said he believes the new practice will alleviate concerns from state officials, who placed the school on probation in part because of truancy rates and inaccurate attendance data.Įpic’s previous protocol contributed to the malleable schedules that made virtual schooling attractive to some families. Banfield said daily attendance strikes a “delicate balance” between the autonomy students desire and the necessity to keep them engaged on a regular basis. The 28,500 students enrolled in Epic are counted present if they complete daily instructional activities. After intense criticism of its attendance policies, Epic Charter School now takes attendance through daily classwork, a significant change from its prior method.
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