Following 3-member walkout Monday, Tulsa school board to reconsider 14 items today

Tulsa Public Schools’ Board of Education will take a second look Thursday afternoon at 14 items that did not pass at Monday night’s regular meeting, thus leaving many of the district’s operations in limbo.

According to the agenda released Wednesday, the items coming back before the board at a special meeting Thursday afternoon include the district’s 2022-23 agreement with Reading Partners to place volunteer reading coaches at 18 elementary schools, contracts for 32 new teachers and support personnel, 30 staffing moves within the district, recruitment stipends of up to $3,000, and summer pay for more than 30 transportation department employees.

Those items were all originally on Monday’s consent agenda but did not receive the required majority of votes needed to pass.

Board members E’Lena Ashley and Jennettie Marshall voted against everything on Monday’s consent agenda, while Jerry Griffin voted against 12 of the 28 items on the consent agenda. With Judith Barba Perez absent, a tie vote resulted for those 12 items.

Those 12 items have been moved to the action agenda for Thursday’s meeting. A district spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday that the move was made at the request of board leadership.

Also coming back before the board Thursday are a pair of resolutions connected to the proposed sale of $6.2 million in school bonds from the technology-focused portion of the district’s 2021 bond package to Bank of Oklahoma Financial Services, which had the lowest bid in a sealed, competitive process overseen by the district’s financial adviser, Edmond-based Municipal Financial Services.

Superintendent Deborah Gist’s husband, Ronnie Jobe, is a BOk employee. Despite Gist’s repeated statements that his scope of work has nothing to do with school bonds, Marshall, Griffin and Ashley voted against awarding that portion of the bond Monday night.

Originally scheduled to be focused on the district’s strategic plan, Thursday’s 1 p.m. meeting has been moved from a conference room to the much larger Selman Room of the Education Service Center, which normally is the site of regular board meetings.

Along with Thursday’s session, a special board meeting has also been called for 1:30 p.m. Friday. President Stacey Woolley said Tuesday that she was prepared to have daily board meetings if needed until all items that received tie votes at Monday night’s meeting are resolved.

“We are just over one month away from the start of school year,” she said. “We should be focusing our energy and attention as a board and a city on what we need to do to support school teams with a strong start to the year.”

In addition to the 14 items that originally went before the board Monday night, Thursday’s agenda also calls for the board to convene in executive session to once again discuss Devin Fletcher and a vendor, Snicklebox LLC. However, the agenda does not call for the board to take any votes or action regarding either.

The head of TPS’ Talent Management Department and the district’s Chief Equity Officer, Fletcher submitted a two-sentence resignation letter on June 27 after Gist said she notified him that he would be suspended and that she would seek his termination.

To date, the board has not accepted Fletcher’s resignation.

Based in Atlanta, Snicklebox had previously contracted with the district to “update and refine talent management practices” in order to recruit and retain teachers.

However, as part of a special board meeting earlier this month, the district disclosed that an investigation is underway into claims that the Atlanta-based contractor made payments to TPS employees and that the district had already stopped using the contractor’s services.

On July 1, TPS officials announced the discovery of almost $20,000 in irregularities tied to a vendor contract within the district’s personnel office. Those irregularities are alleged to have happened more than two years ago but were brought to administrators’ attention within the last month and turned over to local law enforcement on June 27, Gist said.

Gist staying put

Superintendent Deborah Gist is not leaving Tulsa Public Schools at this time, despite a public call Tuesday from board member Jerry Griffin for her exit in light of Monday night's contentious meeting, a spokeswoman for Tulsa Public Schools said Wednesday.

One of three board members to walk out Monday night after Gist used the superintendent’s report portion of the agenda to criticize board votes on more than a dozen items, Griffin has said he is prepared to circulate a petition among board members to remove her if necessary.

“She has to maintain good relations with the board,” he said Tuesday. “Otherwise that could be construed as breach of contract.”

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