Beth Wallis: We're here today to talk about how Tulsa Public Schools is doing so far in terms of complying with mandates given by Superintendent Ryan Walters and the State Board of Education. Every month, TPS gives an update to the board about several improvement areas: financial controls, academic outcomes... But let's back up a little first and talk about how we got here. I'm joined by Max Bryan of Public Radio Tulsa.
Max Bryan: Hello.
Wallis: So Max, let's start with the person now at the center of TPS’ improvement plan, its new superintendent. So set the stage for us. What happened leading up to her tenure?
Bryan: Yes. So the new superintendent is Dr. Ebony Johnson. She is the former Chief Learning Officer of TPS, and she stepped into the interim role in August after Dr. Deborah Gist voluntarily stepped down to basically shield the district from a potential takeover or her being forcibly removed from her position.
So a little background here. Right at the end of July, Walters threatened the district's accreditation, and he cited reading scores — student performance does not currently determine accreditation status — and a lack of financial controls at the district.
And so the night before the week of the accreditation vote, Dr. Gist announced that she was going to step down. And then the night before the vote, the school board officially signed off on her resignation and put Dr. Johnson in the interim role. Now, fast forward to December. So last month, Dr. Johnson officially took over as the superintendent of Tulsa Public Schools.
Wallis: Another big issue has been finances. So tell us a little bit of the background on why the board cares about TPS as finances.
Bryan: There was one very high ranking TPS official, Devin Fletcher, the former Chief Learning and Talent Officer who embezzled more than $600,000 from the district and from the Tulsa Public Schools Foundation. He took the money by creating fake documents and invoices.
He's been found guilty in a federal court, and he could spend up to 20 years in federal prison and has to pay back all of the money that he swindled away from the district. Dr. Gist reported it to authorities, she reported it the day she found out about it, she reported it to the Tulsa Police Department. The state has told TPS that financial controls are needed in general, but this is the biggest thing that Walters has harped on.
So we've looked at what's happened at a local level, but how is the district's relationship with the state gone when it comes to improving how it handles its money?
Wallis: So TPS has been giving these monthly updates ever since that situation that you referred to that happened this summer. And one of those updates is, can TPS get better control of its financial situation? So initially we saw a couple of months ago, the board's legal counsel pointed out what he saw as ambiguous spending, just not classified very clearly in TPS’ ledgers. And he alleged the school wouldn't meet with the department to talk about it. We found out later, we have emails saying that wasn't really the case there. TPS has also countered some of those allegations of being too ambiguous on their ledgers in follow up presentations.
And in those financial presentations, they've talked about how they are implementing new monitoring software, new auditing software to catch these things whenever they happen. And like you mentioned, they did catch it themselves when it happened in the first place. I think the board is wanting them to put guardrails in place so that it doesn't happen again.
Bryan: So moving on to the academic side of things, The Board of Education wanted to improve academic outcomes at TPS. What does that look like?
Wallis: So there are three different areas that I think that we can kind of hone in on. One is improved literacy. TPS’ literacy levels, they've been a big point of rhetoric for Superintendent Walters. And in line with these new administrative rules that Walters is putting forward, that he's proposing, those administrative rules would tie districts’ accreditation statuses to test scores. And obviously, those rules haven't gone through yet, they haven't gone through the legislative process yet. So by putting this on TPS, it's almost like TPS is kind of a guinea pig for these new administrative rules.
And so here's what they say: the school must have a minimum of 50% of its students scoring “Basic” on state tests, or at the very least, they must increase the number of students scoring “Basic” by 5%. So TPS is currently at 41%. That would mean by the end of the year, they need to be at 46%. And I should also mention that “Basic” is actually the second of four achievement levels. It's not the bottom level.
Bryan: So what would that actually look like in the day-to-day at Tulsa Public Schools’ sites and campuses?
Wallis: So TPS has implemented quite a few initiatives that we hear about at these monthly presentations to target kids and get them into individualized reading programs. They've got several AI programs that they're using. I recently did a story about how they're integrating science of reading programs. There's one called Amira that they're using quite a bit, they use every day. And according to the district, those programs have proven to be pretty effective in the short time that they've been in use.
The other side of it, too, is on the educator’s end. The board says that all of TPS’ educators — elementary and secondary — they have to be trained in the science of reading. And so, Dr. Johnson, she pledged that the district is on track to have 100% of its teachers and administrators trained in the science of reading by the end of the year.
The board also wanted TPS to get at least 12 of the 18 school sites that are on the list, off of it. Let me explain what that means. So MRI stands for “most rigorous intervention.” These are basically schools that are classified, based on state tests, as being very, very low performing. And so to get those test scores up, TPS says it's planning to deploy additional staff to those specific sites to target low performing students at those sites and also make available more time out of school for students to practice reading and for teachers to get more training in the science of reading.
I will also say, Dr. Johnson said school closures are on the table. That is an option. But she said it would be a local decision and one that would not be made lightly.
Bryan: So how did the last presentation to the board go?
Wallis: So Walters wasn't as direct in his, I mean, pretty fatalistic rhetoric that he's been using at other board meetings. I mean, we've seen at other board meetings him saying “all options are on the table,” which is implying, you know, even a state takeover of the school. He said, you know, directly to leadership, “don't test me.” And we see those big headline statements.
That didn't happen at this December meeting, which I think myself and the other reporters were pretty surprised about. It's become kind of a normal thing to hear these threats at these meetings. But it didn't happen. Superintendent Walters thanked Johnson. She had given an hour and a half presentation. It was a very lengthy, very detailed presentation. But it didn't seem like, at least at this last meeting, that things were quite as dire.
Bryan: Well, depending on where you're sitting, it could be a hopeful sign, but certainly not time to let your guard down.
Wallis: Exactly. Well, Max, thank you so much for talking tips with me.
Bryan: Thank you, Beth.
