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Sequoyah County Times
Charter school mails fliers
to thousands of students’ homes
JENNIFER PALMER
OKLAHOMA WATCH
The state Education De-
partment is investigating
how a startup statewide
charter school obtained
the home addresses of
students across the state.
Thousands of Okla-
homa students received
recruitment fliers in the
mail from the Oklahoma
Information and Technol-
ogy School, a new virtual
charter school. Parents are
furious about the school’s
access to children’s names
and home addresses.
“We have received
alarming complaints,”
State Superintendent of
Public Instruction Joy
Hofmeister said in a writ-
ten statement. “As a result
of these troubling ac-
counts, a state investiga-
tion has begun. That in-
orig.pdf 1
Property of OPS News Tracker and members of the Oklahoma Press Association.
vestigation will continue
24/7 until we have an-
swers.”
The school, which opens
this fall, sent the mailers
to public fifth and sixth
grade students attending
schools across the state.
The virtual school is part
of Dove Schools, a charter
school with seven sites in
Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
The school obtained the
addresses through a por-
tion of the state Education
Department’s website for
school officials, said attor-
ney Drew Edmondson,
who is representing the
school in its charter au-
thorization.
“It probably would have
been a better practice to
address the letters ‘to the
parents of and then the
student’s name’,” said Ed-
mondson, adding that the
school didn’t have access
to the names of the par-
ents.
It was a one-time thing,
he said, to notify parents
of the schooling option.
The recruitment fliers,
which included an appli-
cation to the school, were
addressed to the students
by name.  state. Epic obtained those
“This is a violation of
privacy and safety. The
home address of our mi-
nor children, along with
their names, should nev-
er be shared by the state
Department with anyone
other than the school
districts in which they
are enrolled,” said Erika
Wright, a Noble Public
Schools board mem-
ber who leads an advo-
cacy group for four-day
schools. Parents brought
the fliers to her attention
Friday.
She said marketing to
students in other districts
was “unconscionable.”
Another statewide vir-
tual school, Epic Charter
Schools, came under fire
last summer for sending
mailers and emails to cer-
tified teachers across the
addresses through an
open records request.
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