Tulsa Education: December 2024 Archives

Well, it's filing time again; I know you're busy.
I can see that far-away look in your eye.
You've got Christmas gifts to buy, and weather's freezing,
But there's just one day to go of filing time.

As many readers are no doubt aware, I am a board member of Tulsa Classical Academy, the first classical charter school and first Hillsdale K-12 member school in Oklahoma. TCA is in its second year of operation, and early next year will be the fifth anniversary of the initial meetings to organize the school, convened by founding board president Nathan Phelps in 2020 just before the pandemic. (What I'm about to say is my opinion only, well-grounded though it is, and does not represent TCA, the TCA board, administration, faculty, students, or parents.)

One of the distinctive characteristics of TCA is that we are unapologetically patriotic, and inspiring a love of the United States of America is one of our educational goals and one of the goals of the Hillsdale curriculum. If you walk the halls of TCA, you will see a display of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights (including the two articles that were not approved with the other ten). There is a collection of portraits of great Americans. At the main entrance there is a reproduction of the painting of Washington crossing the Delaware River.

The 1776 Curriculum, the American history and civics portion of the Hillsdale K-12 program, doesn't ignore or gloss over the tragic aspects of our history. The introduction to the 1776 Curriculum includes the following in the list of truths on which the curriculum is based:

• That civic knowledge, personal virtue, patriotism, respect for the rule of law, and civil free speech are absolutely necessary for young students to learn for a free and self-governing society to persevere.
• That the more important thing in American history is that which has endured rather than that which has passed, that is, America's founding principles which have outlasted and extinguished from law various forms of evil, such as slavery, racism, and other violations of the equal protection of natural rights.
• That although the United States of America is by no means perfect, it is unprecedented in the annals of human history for the extraordinary degrees of freedom, peace, and prosperity available to its people and to those who immigrate to her shores.
• That these unprecedented benefits are the result of its founding ideas and of those who have bravely sacrificed to prove these principles true--the principles that all men are created equal in their human dignity and possession of certain natural rights, that government exists solely to protect these rights and to promote the public good, and that people ought to govern themselves and respect the rights of one another.
• That for these reasons, America is an exceptionally good country.

These sentiments were still the majority view when I was in school and universally held during my parents' school days. Instilling a unifying national pride and affection in natives and the children of immigrants alike was one of the overt aims of the public education system.

There's a perception out there that TCA is the only unapologetically patriotic, the only non-woke free public school in the Tulsa metro area. I doubt that's true. I hope that isn't true. But that perception may lead some parents to want their children to attend TCA, even if they don't particularly like Hillsdale K-12's strongly structured approach to learning, the uniforms, the memorization and recitation, the focus on desk work and listening quietly to the teacher. There may well be a market for a patriotic Montessori charter school, a proudly American Charlotte Mason-style classical charter school, or a flag-waving choose-your-own-adventure charter un-school, but none of those is what TCA aspires to be.

The real question is why there are so few (or perceived to be so few) free public schools in the Tulsa metro area where conservative parents feel confident that what they are teaching their children at home about America, the Christian faith, Western Civilization, sex and sexuality, morals and manners, won't be undermined by educational missionaries seeking to convert Oklahoma's children away from the benighted views of their parents to the glories of progressive dogma. There was a time when local parents hired the school teacher directly and made very sure that he or she not only shared their values but lived in accordance with them. Now teachers are produced by progressive college departments of education, and the elected school board members who are supposed to represent the taxpayers and parents are supposed to shut up and just find money for whatever curriculum the progressive professionals deem appropriate. If elected board members and elected legislators and the elected State Superintendent try to direct and shape the curriculum, they're denounced as "politicizing" the schools.

If you want your public schools to reflect your love of America, you need to elect school board members who not only share that love but will take office with the confidence that they have the right and the obligation to direct the curriculum of your school district. Plenty of school board members who are personally conservative have been convinced that they must not wield their authority in any way; they are merely to rubber-stamp the superintendent's agenda and make sure the money keeps flowing.

The time to do something about that is right now.

Public schools are meant to serve the public interest,
But the lefties say that "All your kids are mine!"
They use public schools to push their own agenda,
And our only remedy is filing time.

Tomorrow, December 4, 2024, is the final day of the three-day filing period for public school board seats in Oklahoma, including regular public school districts and technology center districts. This year once again, the filing period falls right after Thanksgiving weekend and at the beginning of Advent and the Christmas rush, as our thoughts and energies are focused on faith and family.

(By the way, it's also filing period for bills for next year's legislative session. If you don't like having school board filing in December right after Thanksgiving and the elections at a time when few are paying attention, tell your state representative and state senator to file a bill moving school board elections to November -- when people expect to go to the polls -- in odd-numbered years -- when school board races won't get lost in the noise of federal and state races.)

This year only one seat, Office No. 5, is up for election in the vast majority of independent school districts, which have five school board members. (Dependent K-8 districts have 3 seats, and Office No. 2 is on the ballot this year.) Tulsa Public Schools has a seven-member board and has two seats, No. 2 and No. 3 on the ballot. Oklahoma City has a district-wide elected school board chairman up for election as well as two seats, Offices No. 1 and 2.

The primary election in all districts will be February 11, 2025, with a general election on April 1, 2025. If only two candidates file for a seat, the election will be on April 1. If more than two file, an election will be held on February 11 with a runoff on April 1 if no candidate receives a majority of the vote.

In Tulsa County, after two days of filing, only one candidate, typically the incumbent, has filed in the vast majority of school board seats. No candidates at all have filed for seats in Collinsville and Owasso.

On the Tulsa Public Schools board, Calvin Moniz, who won a special election this past spring to fill the unexpired Office No. 2 term, is on the ballot for a full term and is opposed by Khadija Goz, a Democrat Party activist.

Rick Kibbe, the incumbent in Tulsa Technology Center Office No. 2, is opposed for re-election by Todd Blackburn; Kibbe retired as Superintendent of Catoosa Public Schools in 2017. Blackburn, CEO of Techsico, serves on the board of the Tulsa Tech Educational Foundation.

Incumbent Tulsa Office No. 3 board member Dr. Jennettie Marshall has not yet filed for re-election; Dorie Simmons, a real estate agent, is the only candidate to file for the seat so far.

It's also filing period for City Council in Owasso and Sand Springs.

Here's the full list of Tulsa County school board filings through the end of Tuesday:

• Berryhill Public Schools, Office No. 5
• Dusty Hutchison, 39, Tulsa

• Bixby Public Schools, Office No. 5
• Pablo Aguirre, 40, Bixby

• Broken Arrow Public Schools, Office No. 5
• Jerry Denton (i), 59, Broken Arrow
• Bruce Allen Lamont, 48, Broken Arrow
• Kate Williams, 40, Broken Arrow

• Collinsville Public Schools, Office No. 5
• NO CANDIDATES

• Glenpool Public Schools, Office No. 2
• Michael Rhine (i), 36, Glenpool

• Glenpool Public Schools, Office No. 5
• Amber Leiser (i), 36, Glenpool

• Jenks Public Schools, Office No. 5
• Chuck Forbes (i), 53, Tulsa

• Keystone Public Schools, Office No. 2
• Clay Biggerstaff (i), 43, Sand Springs

• Liberty Public Schools, Office No. 5
• Brent W. Hickerson, 43, Mounds

• Owasso Public Schools, Office No. 5
• Frosty Turpen (i), 67, Owasso

• Sand Springs Public Schools, Office No. 5
• Alesha Spoon, 38, Sand Springs

• Skiatook Public Schools, Office No. 5
• Aleen Joy McLain (i), 54, Skiatook

• Sperry Public Schools, Office No. 5
• Johnny Holmes (i), 45, Sperry

• Tulsa Public Schools, Office No. 2
• Khadija Goz, 39, Tulsa
• Calvin Moniz (i), 39, Tulsa

• Tulsa Public Schools, Office No. 3
• Dorie Simmons, 50, Tulsa
• Kyra Carby, 39, Tulsa
• Brandi Joseph, 49, Tulsa
• Eartha McAlester, 46, Tulsa

• Tulsa Tech Center Office No. 2
• Todd Blackburn, 51, Tulsa
• Rick Kibbe (i), 66, Catoosa

• Union Public Schools, Office No. 5
• Steve Nguyen (i), 45, Tulsa

Tulsa County candidates should file for office at the Tulsa County Election Board, 555 N. Denver Ave., Tulsa. Filing for the 2025 school board election ends at 5 p.m., Wednesday, December 4, 2024. You'll find a packet of forms and instructions on the Tulsa County Election Board website.

UPDATED 2024/12/06: Filing is now final. Italics indicate candidates who filed on Wednesday after this article was first published. Both Tulsa Public Schools races are contested, as is the seat in Broken Arrow. The incumbent finally filed for the Owasso seat, but the Collinsville seat drew no candidates, and the remaining school board members will have to appoint a replacement.