OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma State Board of Education on Thursday approved Tulsa Public Schools’ application seeking greater regulatory flexibility for Tulsa Beyond.
Board members praised the district for being the first to apply for Empowered Schools Act status, which provides the same exemptions from statutory requirements and board rules that are afforded to charter schools.
Bill Price called Tulsa Beyond — the TPS project aimed at “re-imagining” high schools — one of the most exciting initiatives he’s seen during his time on the board. Its purpose is to create the next generation of schools that will effectively serve Tulsa’s youth and community.
“We’ve needed radical change in Oklahoma, and this is really the beginning of radical change,” Price said.
TPS submitted an extensive application to the board in March that outlined its needs for regulatory flexibility in the areas of graduation requirements, attendance and student learning. The requests are for three of the four Tulsa Beyond schools: Webster, Hale and Tulsa Learning Academy.
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Design teams spent several months creating personalized school models for each site, which will begin pilot phases in August. The fourth school — McLain — still is working on its model and plans to launch a pilot the following year.
Part of why board members approved the application is because they’re legally required to unless the request is not compliant with the federal Empowered Schools Act. It also must be fiscally feasible and unlikely to worsen academic achievement.
But the board also expressed its excitement about the application, and many wondered why it’s taken this long to receive one.
TPS is the only district to submit a plan requesting the flexibilities available under the Empowered Schools Act since it was enacted about six years ago.
Board member Leo Baxter said there was a lot of enthusiasm from districts when the law was passed. He believes the complicated and extensive application process may be a determent. It took TPS over a year to prepare its proposal.
“Something’s wrong here,” Baxter said. “I don’t know what the problem is, whether it’s the law or the process. But what we’ve done here is created something under the guise of, ‘Well public schools can be treated just like a charter school. All you got to do is this.’
“And the ‘this’ part is apparently so difficult and so bureaucratic and so convoluted that it just discourages other public schools from trying it. Obviously Tulsa was not deterred by this.”
Baxter also was concerned that rural school districts with smaller budgets and lack of big donors can’t afford to implement similar redesign initiatives. Tulsa Beyond is funded through Bloomberg Philanthropies and XQ Super Schools, a nationwide high school redesign model, to the tune of about $3.5 million.
Aspasia Carlson, director of high school design for TPS, said it’s possible for districts without philanthropic funding to tackle a project like Tulsa Beyond. She said it’s a matter of reorganizing how they use their money, noting that redesigning a high school doesn’t necessarily equate to an increase in students or teachers.
Other districts also will benefit from accessing the years of research that’s been done for Tulsa Beyond, Carlson said. She believes some reluctant districts may follow in TPS’ footsteps in seeking Empowered Schools Act status.
“When you’re blazing a trail for others, then others are kind of waiting to see what this application actually looks like and what it entails,” she said.
Board member Cathryn Franks told Carlson she is excited for the future of Tulsa Beyond and asked her to mentor other districts interested in following suit.
Following the meeting, Carlson said she’s relieved to reach this important milestone and eager to move forward with the evolution of the high school experience.
“This is really an opportunity to provide equitable experiences and outcomes for young people to address what is coming for them in the future,” she said.
