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Only accredited private schools qualify for the state’s Parental Choice Tax Credit program, a voucher-like state subsidy for parents to use toward tuition. But schools need only report the name of their accreditor. There is no verification beyond that, and any accreditor goes. Among the schools approved are Goodland Academy, a middle school in Hugo that shuttered for two years but maintained accreditation and reopened in February with five students, all of whom received a tax credit. A preschool at the Oklahoma City Zoo also received state a...
Teacher turnover hit its highest point since the pandemic last school year, when more than 6,000 Oklahoma public school teachers left the classroom. The crush of school departures occurred even as the state implemented the largest salary increase for educators since 2018 at $3,000 to $6,000 per teacher, depending on experience. “There’s no question: overall, there continues to be a serious crisis,” said Chris Tobler, director of human resources for Mustang Public Schools, the state’s 11th largest district. According to an analysis of certifi...
A committee examining prayer in schools asked the state Board of Education to require every classroom to display a poster of the Ten Commandments and require students to take a course on Western civilization for graduation. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters announced the recommendations at Thursday’s state Board of Education meeting. The committee also wants the state to enforce an existing state statute requiring a minute of silence at the start of every school day. Walters urged all schools to “begin faithfully obs...
Signing bonuses of as much as $50,000 are what Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters said is needed to attract new and retired teachers to the classroom. That’s also what makes his new bonus plan a risky policy. Schools reported more than 1,000 teaching vacancies at the start of the 2022-23 school year and used more than 4,100 emergency-certified teachers to staff classrooms. Emergency certificates allow schools to hire people with at least a bachelor’s degree to fill a teaching position. Often they have no formal training in tea...
A calculation error created a months-long delay in the 2022 school report cards, which still have not been released to the public. The error caused some schools to receive inaccurate letter grades late last year. The Oklahoma Department of Education corrected the scores and gave school leaders until Monday to review. Grades are expected to be public after the review period, but what parents see may not be the corrected version. In an email to district leaders, the department said it will “honor the original letter grade.” Some school leaders sa...
The state’s attorney general withdrew a previous opinion that opened the door for religious charter schools and is urging a state board to “use caution” in considering a Catholic school application. Charter schools are public schools that are privately managed and, under state law, are required to be non-sectarian, meaning not affiliated with a particular religion. The application under consideration was made by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa for the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual Charter School, an onlin...
Gov. Kevin Stitt was reelected Tuesday and his pick for state superintendent, Ryan Walters, secured his seat as well, setting up a new direction for education in Oklahoma. Stitt defeated Joy Hofmeister, state superintendent of public instruction for the past eight years. Walters defeated Jena Nelson, a teacher who has never held public office. Walters is a former teacher, executive director of the nonprofit Every Kid Counts Oklahoma, and secretary of education, a role Stitt appointed him to in 2020. Despite polls showing both races would be...
By majority vote, the State Board of Education on Thursday refused to reconsider sanctions it handed down to two districts last month under a state law prohibiting certain conversations on race. The board’s refusal followed a string of emotional pleas from community and district leaders in Tulsa and Mustang that revealed the toll the board’s action has taken on their schools. On July 28, both districts were accredited with warning for violating the provisions of House Bill 1775. “People move to Mustang because of the schools. My family moved...
Since taking office as the State Auditor & Inspector, Cindy Byrd has handled some political footballs with audits of the state's largest virtual charter school, the state health department and numerous other schools and municipalities. She's done so by keeping her focus on one thing. "I believe people own the government and government entities are just stewards of the people's checkbook. And my role is to go and make sure those checkbooks are in order," Byrd said. She brings a "rural girl"...
Epic Charter Schools is facing another investigation of its finances and governance, this one by the Internal Revenue Service, Oklahoma Watch has learned. The online charter school's board chairman was notified of the inquiry in a letter dated Jan. 14, records show. In the letter, the IRS requested documents dating to 2015, about the same time period the state Auditor & Inspector examined. That audit, released in October 2020, found the school diverted tens of millions of taxpayer dollars into...
Erika Wright has been a Democrat and a Republican, and, until recently, was registered Independent. “I tend to vote for people versus party,” she said. She made another switch last week – back to Republican – specifically to vote for state superintendent of public instruction in the primary. Three candidates have announced. All are Republicans: John Cox, Peggs Public Schools superintendent; April Grace, Shawnee Public Schools superintendent; and Ryan Walters, state Secretary of Education. Under that scenario, the race would be over before...
Oklahoma’s law preventing schools from mandating masks is temporarily on hold due to a judge’s ruling Wednesday morning, Sept. 1. That means school districts can move forward with a mask requirement on school campuses potentially by early this week, as long as the mandate gives parents the ability to opt out. Some districts, like Oklahoma City Public Schools and Santa Fe South charter school, already require masks with an opt-out provision where parents can fill out a form to request an exemption for their child to attend school without a mas...
To improve its board oversight, the state’s largest online school has turned to a businessman who founded the state’s first rural charter school. Paul Campbell was named chairman of Community Strategies, Epic Charter Schools’ governing board, on May 26, part of the school’s response to a critical investigative audit and a report from the multicounty grand jury urging the public to demand more accountability. Campbell, chief executive officer of Spartan Energy Services, also chairs The Academy of Seminole’s board, giving him the unusual p...
Two education measures finalized this week mark a win for those who subscribe to the philosophy that public tax dollars should follow students to the school of their choice. Gov. Kevin Stitt on Wednesday signed into law bills to alter the school funding formula and expand students’ ability to transfer between schools. Supporters of the funding measure, House Bill 2078, say it will more closely align school funding with enrollment trends. And the transfer measure, Senate Bill 783, allows students to more easily and frequently move to a school t...
A proposal to adjust the school funding formula could strip millions from urban and rural districts and shift it to others. Had it been in place this year, Oklahoma City Public Schools' state aid would have been reduced by more than $7 million. Tulsa Public Schools would have received nearly $3 million less – the equivalent of 50 teachers' salaries. The negative impact could be significant on small, rural districts, too. The 315-student district of Fort Towson in southeastern Oklahoma, for i...
Computer programmer Gradyn Wursten still updates a project he created to hack his high school homework. As a sophomore, he used an old MacBook with a cracked screen and bulging battery to write the code that adds shortcuts to Edgenuity – an online education platform used by more than 3 million students. Once installed, his program can skip videos and automatically fill practice questions with answers - progressing straight to quizzes and tests. Instead of watching a 30-minute history lesson on t...
The disruption COVID-19 has caused to schools is likely to continue into the new school year, and the state Education Department is asking school leaders to begin planning for it. Schools should adopt multiple calendars, one primary and others as contingencies, to adapt to the unfolding public health situation, according to recently updated guidance from the department. Here are five calendar options schools are asked to consider: • An early start to the school year, to reduce the summer learning loss and to maximize time in school before a p...
The disruption COVID-19 has caused to schools is likely to continue into the new school year, and the state Education Department is asking school leaders to begin planning for it. Schools should adopt multiple calendars, one primary and others as contingencies, to adapt to the unfolding public health situation, according to recently updated guidance from the department. Here are five calendar options schools are asked to consider: • An early start to the school year, to reduce the summer learning loss and to maximize time in school before a p...
Police in some of Oklahoma's largest cities are electing to use a softer touch, rather than aggressive enforcement, with state and local business restrictions as Oklahoma gradually reopens amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Scores of restaurants, retailers and offices have reopened their doors – or at least partially returned to pre-pandemic life – since Gov. Kevin Stitt and many cities or counties eased stay-at-home restrictions on May 1. More orders are set to topple later this week after the sta...
When the coronavirus pandemic closed school buildings, teachers were tasked with connecting to students from afar. Suddenly, students' lack of home internet access was in the spotlight. A mid-March survey by the Oklahoma Education Department showed that nearly one-quarter of the state's public school students, about 167,000, don't have internet access at home. That means in places like Hugo, a community of 5,100 in southeastern Oklahoma, teachers had to try to reach students through phone...
Like many teenagers, Maggie Waldon caught a sort of senioritis halfway through a traditional high school. She was ready to be done. With two years left, she enrolled in Epic Charter Schools, the Oklahoma City-based online public school that is now one of the largest virtual schools in the country. At Epic, Waldon said she easily raised her grades from Cs and Fs to As and Bs. She said she did so with little interaction with her teacher, spending long days clicking through the curriculum. "There...
Gov. Kevin Stitt used his second State of the State speech Monday to urge lawmakers to continue his effort to transform state government and turn Oklahoma into a "top ten state." Among the most dramatic proposals was combining all of the state's major health agencies and health-related licensing boards into a single agency. The 40-minute speech kicked off this year's legislative session as lawmakers returned to the State Capitol without the luxury of the nearly $600 million budget surplus that a...
The state’s bar has been set for schools to operate on a four-day week and the requirements could force many schools back to five days a week. School leaders and community members can weigh in for the next three weeks on new proposed qualifications schools must meet to use an abbreviated academic calendar. Under a new law intended to curb the use of four-day school weeks, a school year must be at least 165 days beginning in 2021 unless a district receives a waiver from the state Board of Education. To receive a waiver, schools must meet c...
The state’s bar has been set for schools to operate on a four-day week and the requirements could force many schools back to five days a week. School leaders and community members can weigh in for the next three weeks on new proposed qualifications schools must meet to use an abbreviated academic calendar. Under a new law intended to curb the use of four-day school weeks, a school year must be at least 165 days beginning in 2021 unless a district receives a waiver from the state Board of Education. To receive a waiver, schools must meet c...
In classrooms across Oklahoma and the nation, students are taught to read using a theory that has been discredited by decades of research by brain scientists. This "three-cueing system," first proposed in 1967, is pervasive in reading instruction and curriculum. Students are instructed to use strategies that include memorizing words, using pictures on the page to decipher a word and skipping words they don't know. Teaching these strategies actually makes it harder for kids to learn to read, stud...
