Parents Upset With Classen SAS After Acceptance Letter Snafu

Parents are outraged after their children are accepted, then later denied admission to the Classen School of Advanced Studies.

OKC school board members have been flooded with angry phone calls and emails from out of district parents. They're urging the board to reconsider their decision. One school board member who denied those students is speaking out about the policy, and says it's time to fix a broken system.

"There's certainly eight people that I think have a cause to be unhappy," said OKC School Board member, Bob Hammack.

Vague oversight, failed safe guards and an unevenly administered policy, that's what Hammack says lead to this very difficult situation, which he says has now turned a bit messy.

"There's little that any board member can say at this point, the anger, that perhaps the eight parents in particular who follow the rules went through," said Hammack.

Those eight district students received an acceptance letter from the vice-principal of the Classen School of Advanced Studies back in February. But Tuesday night, all eight including 40 others who didn't properly complete the application process, were denied admission by the school board.

"We have policies. We have rules. The tax payers expect us to follow those rules, and we're going to start doing it," said Hammack.

Three of the eight board members are new, and Hammack says they didn't know the complexity of the transfer issue. In this most recent case though, acceptance letters were sent out by the school prematurely without considering the school board makes the final decision.

"People sort of turned away, looked the other way on this policy and this new board," said Hammack. "Oklahoma City public schools are intended for Oklahoma City public people and students."

Hammack says there's certainly room to revisit this issue at a future board meeting, but he also points out, he's only one of eight board members.