EPIC Blended Learning Charter board hears presentation showing benchmark gains, discusses NAEP decline and intervention program

EPIC Blended Learning Charter trustees heard presentations Feb. 24 showing gains on January reading and math formative benchmarks and preliminary results from a new in-house intervention program aimed at students performing below staff-defined benchmark levels.

The presentations, delivered to the board by Dr. Summers and EPIC instruction staff, placed January ELA and math formative scores above the organization’s short-term targets and described “better-than-expected” semester-to-semester growth for students who received live, virtual interventions. State testing at EPIC is scheduled to begin in April and run through mid-May, presenters said.

Why it matters: Board members and staff framed the results as early evidence that the district’s investment in direct, in-house intervention is producing measurable improvement for students behind benchmarks, and they contrasted EPIC’s local gains with larger statewide declines on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Dr. Summers said the district’s January reading and math performance were “well above the targets” and signaled progress compared with previous years. The presentation also included context about NAEP: Dr. Summers noted that Oklahoma’s NAEP reading scores have fallen over recent assessment cycles and described that statewide decline as a separate, broader challenge for policymakers.

Instruction staff reported that semester one intervention work involved 52 interventionists and roughly 1,921 students in reading and 1,910 students in math participating in live, virtual 30-minute sessions (two times per week). Staff described the group targeted for intervention in the presentation using the phrase from the slides, “below the 20 fifth percentile,” as the benchmark threshold for referral to the intervention program. Presenters compared the observed point growth against an internal reference point they called the expected benchmark-to-benchmark growth (reported as 15–25 points). Across grade bands, several cohorts exceeded that reference point; kindergarten and first-grade students showed some of the largest relative gains, and multiple elementary and middle-grade groups also posted gains above the stated reference.

Justin (instruction staff) described the program as an implementation-year effort and said the district has already adjusted the schedule for middle-school students to one 45–60-minute session once per week to improve attendance and engagement. Board members asked about overlap between reading and math caseloads and whether the same students were counted in both columns. Instruction staff said they did not have exact cross-match figures ready at the meeting but expected to report follow-up analysis after the second semester.

Board members and staff repeatedly emphasized that the intervention work represents a shift from third-party vendors to in-house delivery; presenters called it a multimillion-dollar investment intended to allow the district to “control our destiny” in how interventions are scheduled and delivered.

Other programming updates given during the same meeting included EPIC’s selection for an Indigenous Health Career Collaborative pilot aimed at Native American high school students, a $2,000 garden-club grant for Oklahoma City Med High, student-led trips to Duncan Regional Hospital, recognition for mock-trial competitors in Tulsa, Poetry Out Loud winners and a student care-package follow-up from deployed service members.

The board requested follow-up reporting after the second semester that will (staff said) include exact overlap counts between reading and math intervention rosters and further disaggregation of outcomes by grade and learning center. State testing in April will provide another benchmark for comparison.