Superintendent Walters Voices Concern Over Discipline in Oklahoma Schools

The Oklahoma State Board of Education held its monthly meeting Thursday morning.

Recent meetings have been met with overflowing rooms and protestors but Thursday’s agenda began with the swearing-in of a new board member, Zachary Archer.

After that, State Superintendent Ryan Walters outlined issues of concern that he has for Oklahoma schools. Walters said that one of the top issues he hears is a lack of discipline in the classroom. He said that he was announcing "comprehensive discipline reform" and that he wanted to have accountability in place so that every teacher can teach effectively. Walters did not provide any specifics about the reform and said that more details would be announced later.

Walters then turned his attention to the war between Israel and Hamas. Walters claimed to have seen troubling statements coming out of higher ed regarding the nation of Israel and said that he wants to make sure anti-Israel teaching doesn’t go on in K-12. He said that he wants to make sure that Oklahoma schools are teaching that Israel is a nation-state that has a right to exist and that young people are clear about where the nation stands. He said his staff would be looking over materials to make sure that was not happening.

Tulsa public schools gave an update to the state board of education on ways the district is improving. This comes after state superintendent Ryan Walters told the district they needed to give monthly updates to the state board of education.

The focus of today's update was reading within the district. Interim superintendent Dr Ebony Johnson broke down how the district plans to improve.

“Student success is of course our ultimate goal, and the work we do pushes for student success,” Dr. Johnson said.

Dr. Johnson went through the reading programs the district uses, the way teachers are trained, and how they want to improve this school year.

“From our projections, we expect to see a 5% point increase, on OSDE proficiency, but our aspirations are significantly higher,” she said.

State Superintendent Ryan Walters says he’s been pleased with Dr. Johnson and he wants the district to be a success story, but there’s still work to be done.

“I would love for the folks in this room to come in here and we get to do this incredible final meeting of the year about what happened in Tulsa, and look at the trajectory for these kids, but if that’s not where we’re headed, we will intervene,” he said.

The district is set to present at the next board meeting on November 30.

Dr. Johnson says the district will focus on financial transparency and corrective action at the district

Both Cushing Public Schools and Moore Public Schools requested to change the documented gender of a student in each of their districts. The Board of Education will also discussed the suspension of a staff member's teaching certificate.

The next board meeting has been scheduled for November 30 at 9:30