In a decision made under a microscope, the Tulsa Board of Education chose to keep its interim superintendent as a permanent hire, despite the state’s top schools official calling for a national search.
The school board voted 4-2 with one abstention during a lengthy meeting Monday night to hire Ebony Johnson through June 30, 2026. An audience full of Johnson’s family and supporters ended the meeting with cheers at Tulsa’s Charles C. Mason Education Service Center.
Board President Stacey Woolley said it was of “critical importance” to choose a permanent leader given the extraordinary pressure the district is under from the Oklahoma State Board of Education to make sweeping changes and rapid academic gains this school year.
She said hiring Johnson, a qualified candidate and a Tulsa native, better enables the district to plan and hire for the future.
“Quite frankly, the amount of time that it would take to do a search is worrisome given the very tight and timely demands that are being put on us right now,” Woolley said. “There is not time to wait longer to have someone in place who can do the work.”
Johnson, Tulsa’s former chief academic officer, stepped into the interim role in September after former Superintendent Deborah Gist resigned under pressure from state Superintendent Ryan Walters.
Walters acknowledged the relationship between his administration and the school district improved once Johnson took over, but his latest comments calling for a national search appeared to stoke more tension between the two sides.
Walters wasn’t the only one to weigh in. High-ranking public officials — including Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum and Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. — along with hundreds of Tulsans who signed a community letter urged the school board to hire Johnson as its permanent superintendent.
It is highly unusual for a local school district’s hiring process to attract such input, particularly from a sitting state superintendent.
State Superintendent Ryan Walters speaks during an Oklahoma State Board of Education meeting Aug. 24 in Oklahoma City. Walters called on Tulsa Public Schools to have a national search for a superintendent. (Photo by Brent Fuchs/For Oklahoma Voice) Walters demanded “bold plans” from the next district leader and cited Tulsa’s poor performance on state tests, which showed a majority of students did not score at their grade level in reading and math.
The Oklahoma State Board of Education recently demanded Tulsa grow its reading scores by at least 5% this school year or have more than half of its students score at least at a basic reading level when the next round of state tests are administered this spring.
Walters hinted, as he has before, that the state board would consider taking over district leadership if academic outcomes don’t meet expectations. In a letter last week that didn’t mention Johnson by name, he wrote the state Board of Education would “not sit around idly while continuing to let TPS continue down the trajectory they were on under the previous leadership.”
“Stop playing around the edges with programs that do not work and schools that continue to fail,” Walters wrote. “There needs to be drastic change to turn the district around, and the next superintendent needs to be aggressive in pursuing those changes.”
In a strongly worded response Monday, Johnson took issue with Walters’ attempt to involve himself in a local board decision and with the suggestion she was incapable of making bold moves.
Johnson said Walters’ letter marked a “major shift” in the Department of Education’s rhetoric toward her administration.
“No one on your team has ever stated or suggested that I and my staff are not working hard to turn around the serious deficiencies in this district,” Johnson wrote. “In fact, it appears to me that there may be a significant schism between you and your staff because the feedback that I have received from them is that we are doing all that can be done at this point, with lots of hard work ahead.”
She previously promised the district is exploring school closures and changes to its top-level staff to deliver on the state’s demands. Two leading administrators, Deputy Superintendent Paula Shannon and finance and operations chief Jorge Robles, already announced they will depart at the end of the school year.
Johnson said she has the trust of the community and her school board to make necessary academic improvements and strengthen the district’s financial practices, which also have been under scrutiny.
Tulsa Board of Education members, from left, E’Lena Ashley, Jennettie Marshall, Susan Lamkin and Stacey Woolley answer questions from the Oklahoma State Board of Education at an Aug. 24 meeting before a vote on Tulsa Public Schools’ accreditation. (Photo by Brent Fuchs/For Oklahoma Voice) Woolley said the district will struggle to make the demanded academic gains and hire at high-level positions without a permanent leader. A national search could take months, she said, and it could take several more for a new superintendent to become effective at the job.
Instead, Woolley said the district already has a qualified candidate who wants the job, someone with a history of school turnarounds and whose background reflects that of many Tulsa students.
However, some board members objected to the process that led to Monday’s meeting.
Jennettie Marshall, representing the north end of the district, complained not all board members were invited to participate in an ad hoc committee that considered whether to conduct a national search.
Marshall and board members Jerry Griffin and E’Lena Ashley objected to the board’s decision to set aside its traditional candidate search policies to fast-track Johnson’s permanent hiring.
Marshall and Ashley ultimately voted against hiring Johnson. Griffin, though praising her as “the best” candidate, abstained.
After lengthy discussion, the board agreed to suspend its usual hiring rules because it deemed the threats to the district’s accreditation and the loss of multiple executive-level administrators an emergency.
“I’m not speaking on Dr. Johnson,” Marshall said. “I’m speaking about how this board has clouded this process.”
Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com. Follow Oklahoma Voice on Facebook and Twitter.
