In a marathon meeting that lasted more than four hours, members of the Oklahoma State Board of Education accredited school districts for the 2024-2025 school year, revoked two teacher certificates and suspended two others, and approved a budget request to the Legislature that seeks $3 million for Bibles and $500,000 for a teacher open-carry pilot program.
Walters’ total Fiscal Year 2026 budget request constitutes around $100 million more than the State Department of Education received in Fiscal Year 2025, which began July 1.
During Thursday’s meeting, Walters said the requested increase mostly represents the annual increase of costs for teacher benefits, which the department is statutorily required to provide. For FY 2026, Walters will be asking the Oklahoma Legislature for an additional:
- $85 million for the flexible benefit allowance;
- $4 million for paid maternity leave;
- $10 million for public schools activities including a cost of living salary increase for OSDE staff, “IT infrastructure investments and modernization” and other “programs and initiatives”; and
- $2.8 million for OSDE “administrative support,” which includes IT maintenance, insurance premiums and facilities costs.
Although state agencies send budget requests to the Legislature every fall, legislators are not required to adhere to the requests in any way. Even though they carry relatively little weight in the State Capitol, budget requests do provide an indication of agencies’ priorities for the upcoming year. The 60th Oklahoma Legislature is set to convene Monday, Feb. 3.
To that end, Walters stressed school security and Bibles in his Fiscal Year 2026 request presentation.
“We’ve talked about the efforts of left-wing groups and the teachers unions to drive the Bible out of school,” Walters during his address to board members at the beginning of the meeting. “I believe it’s important for historical context for our kids to understand the role the Bible played.”
Walters said that if the Legislature grants his $3 million request for Bibles, it would be paired with another $3 million he said OSDE has already committed for Bibles.
During the board’s discussion of the request, Sarah Lepak asked at length about Walters’ $3 million request to provide Bibles for classrooms across the state. She questioned the plan’s legality and asked how Walters proposes to implement his recent directive that all schools have Bibles in their classrooms and use the religious text as an instructional resource.
“I am very uncomfortable with (…) any kind of idea about proselytizing — establishing some kind of state religion — doing things that may end up favoring one religion over another,” said Lepak, who is Catholic. “I personally am not of the exact same religion as everybody else who may be considering this type of thing. It’s personally important to me to make sure that we have this right.”
Walters framed his directive, which has already drawn a lawsuit, as one that will bring more clarity to teachers.
In response to further questions from Lepak, Walters revealed that he has settled on his preferred version of the Bible for classroom use: the New King James Version. Additionally, he said the Bibles should not contain any commentary.
“I would also say that I believe that the New King James is the version that we should go with, because when we looked at citations, quotations, overwhelmingly, we had, and I can provide it for the board, we had a study that was the vast majority of textbooks of American history that use quotations from individuals throughout American history is citing the King James version,” Walters said. “I also think that we require things like, there’s no commentary attached to it. We’re not looking for this religious group or that one or this church to say, this is how we interpret this. It’s not the intent here. It is just to simply be the text of a historical document, and its usage in American history.”
Walters also said he felt the Bible should only be in classes that teach standards that make the Bible relevant, such as literature or history.
“What we’re looking at is any classroom where the standards apply directly to the Bible. So, when you’re looking at literature, you’re looking at history courses, all of these are going to have direct references in the standards to the biblical and historical context there,” Walters said. “This would have been commonplace until the 1960s. They would have been there. It would have been very relevant in the classroom. That’s now shifted. So, what we’re trying to do is correct that back to say, look, it is obviously a document that’s going to be referenced throughout your time in your K-12 education. It is there. You can take a look at it. You can reference it.”
Lepak also asked OSDE’s general counsel, Michael Beason, if he felt the directive that schools place Bibles in their classrooms was constitutional.
Beason agreed to put together a legal memo for the board before its next meeting, but he said he thought the directive was constitutional and cited a state statute he said allowed Bibles in the classroom. Title 25, Section 2101 reads:
Every county, municipality, city, town, school or any other political subdivision is authorized to display, in its public buildings and on its grounds, replicas of historical documents including, but not limited to, the Ten Commandments, Magna Carta, Mayflower Compact, Declaration of Independence, United States Constitution, Bill of Rights, Oklahoma Constitution and other historically significant documents in the form of statues, monuments, memorials, tablets or any other display that respects the dignity and solemnity of such documents. Such documents shall be displayed in a manner consistent with the context of other documents contained in such display.
Ultimately, Lepak voted with the rest of the board in favor of the budget request but suggested she might want to use the standards review process to ensure teachers are not using the Bible to make theological arguments in the classroom.
Additionally, Walters’ budget request included $500,000 to create a new pilot program to allow teachers who choose to do so to be trained to carry a gun to deter school shootings.
“I want to continue moving that line to ensure that parents and students can go to our public schools and they’ll be safe,” Walters said. “So that a teacher, an administrator, support staff who the local board deems fitting for this role could carry on campus — if that is in alignment with district policy — to ensure protection of the students of that district. We would also provide signage for the district to let everyone know coming on campus that there are individuals who carry on the site to ensure that these school districts are not targeted by evil individuals that unfortunately have been targeting our schools.”
School accreditation actions
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A critic and a supporter of State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters hold signs outside of the Oklahoma State Department of Education before a State Board of Education meeting on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (Bennett Brinkman)
One year after Tulsa Public Schools gave its first monthly progress report to the board as a condition of its accreditation status, board members agreed Thursday to remove that requirement from the district for future meetings.
“This is leadership at the state level and this is leadership at the district level, and it has not been an easy journey for the two leaders (…) but it has been the right thing to do,” Lepak said before the vote.
TPS Superintendent Ebony Johnson praised the board when Walters signaled his intent to lift the requirements on the district.
“Superintendent Walters and the board, on behalf of Tulsa Public Schools and our local Tulsa Public Schools board, thank you. Thank you for the consideration that you’re about to look into regarding the accreditation and our visits,” Johnson said. “We just appreciate the support — we appreciate the collaboration.”
When Johnson left the board room after giving her final monthly progress report, observers sitting in the hallway cheered as she walked past.
In other accreditation actions, board members accredited 1,981 school districts and sites with no deficiencies and 421 school districts with one or more deficiencies.
Nine school districts were accredited with warning:
- Cave Springs Public Schools;
- Hulbert Public Schools;
- Kenwood Public Schools;
- Ninnekah Public Schools;
- Bokoshe Public Schools;
- Perry Public Schools;
- Insight Virtual Charter School;
- Cleveland Public Schools; and
- Kipp Charter School Tulsa.
State Board of Education members placed or kept four districts on probation:
- Billings Public Schools;
- Western Heights Public Schools;
- Optima Public Schools; and
- Straight Public Schools.
Walters and Leslie Janice, the OSDE staff member who presented the accreditation report, said all of the districts on the “warning” and “probation” lists had been contacted by OSDE and were cooperating with the department to improve.
“We’ve got several instances of that where we’re very, very pleased with the steps they’ve taken, but because the financial issues are so large, if we were to move them up — and again, you know, we want to show progress,” Walters said. “We felt like it would be better to keep them in the position they’re in rather than move them up prematurely.”
For Western Heights, a southwest Oklahoma City school district that is moving beyond a troubled period that saw the State Board of Education institute a takeover of the district, Walters said OSDE is continuing to work with Superintendent Brayden Savage to improve the district.
“We didn’t feel like the issues have been addressed enough to move them up,” Walters said. “But that doesn’t have to do with them (not) working with us. That was not an issue.”
OSDE did not recommend any schools for nonaccreditation.
The accreditation actions are the first since Walters implemented new agency rules for evaluating school sites and districts. Although those rules are in effect, Walters said the new accreditation standards tying accreditation closer to academics will apply to the accreditation process taking place currently for next year.
Board takes numerous teacher certification actions
For the second month in a row, board members took action on teacher certifications without going into executive session during the meeting. Board members have avoided going into executive session since Attorney General Gentner Drummond issued an opinion last month telling all state boards to allow qualified legislators to observe the closed-door meetings in most cases.
State Board of Education members have expressed frustration over the opinion and threatened to take the issue to court but have not done so. For now, they seem to be avoiding executive sessions altogether.
Regardless, during Thursday’s meeting, board members suspended teacher certificates for two educators and sent applications to revoke their certificates to hearing officers:
- Grant Hill, a former Edmond Memorial High School teacher and coach and 2017 graduate of the school who resigned from his position in May. No reason was given for his departure, and no criminal charges appear to have been filed against him, although he confirmed Thursday that he is being represented by attorney Joe White in the matter; and
- Kristy Rochell, who appears to be a teacher in Lawton.
Thursday afternoon, White emailed a statement on behalf of Hill.
“The state superintendent is overstepping by launching investigations into teachers who have already been exonerated by both local school boards and law enforcement. These teachers have been cleared of all charges, yet the superintendent is determined to drag their names through the mud for his own personal gain, i.e. media attention,” White said. “The superintendent’s reckless behavior is destroying the lives and careers of dedicated teachers. Many of these individuals have committed no crimes nor have they violated any administrative rule, yet they are being publicly humiliated and subjected to unnecessary stress and scrutiny.”
Board members opted not to suspend the certificate of Aaron Espolt, the superintendent of Shawnee Public Schools. Instead, they referred an application to revoke his certificate to a hearing officer. Espolt was placed on paid administrative leave by the SPS board in August when OSDE notified the district that it had opened an investigation into him.
Espolt’s proposed certificate revocation appears to stem from allegations about and inquiries into the behavior of teachers and coaches at Little Axe Public Schools in the early 2000s, as well as his abrupt mid-year departure as superintendent of Cleveland Public Schools. In 2020 and 2021, Espolt worked for OSDE as executive director of school design and innovation prior to becoming superintendent of Shawnee Public Schools. Facing allegations of inappropriate student relationships over the years himself, Esport has denied knowledge of or behavior constituting misconduct to V1SUT, an anonymous SubStack account that often details allegations against educators.
On Wednesday, Espolt filed a lawsuit and request for a temporary restraining order seeking to prevent State Board of Education members from suspending his certificate. Board members ultimately decided not to suspend Espolt’s certificate as long as he remains on administrative leave.
Additionally on Thursday, board members dismissed proceedings against:
- Scott Renken, a Guymon Public Schools teacher who was involved in some sort of social media controversy in 2023 for posting about student vandalism while teaching in Perryton, Texas. Months later, he lost his position as basketball coach at the school; and
- Shawn Finch, who appears to have been a wrestling coach at Clinton Public Schools at one point. The OSDE educator search tool says he has already surrendered his certificate.
Board members accepted the voluntary surrender of teacher certificates for:
- David Irby, a former Norman Public Schools band director who resigned in 2023 and who has been accused of molestation, although no formal charges appear to have been filed against him; and
- Steven Hernandez, who appears to be a registered sex offender owing to a 2021 child pornography conviction.
Board members revoked the teacher certificates of:
- Lucian Littledave, who pleaded guilty to sexual abuse charges in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma in May; and
- Stacy Parker, a former Krebs Public Schools special education teacher who was charged in February with four counts of child abuse.
Board members approved a rehearing on revocation proceedings for:
- Melissa Smith, a former Western Heights teacher; and
- Jaelah Marche Rose, a former Douglass High School teacher and coach who was charged in July with malicious injury of property but pleaded no contest to a disturbing the peace charge for allegedly using a baseball bat to smash the truck tail lights of a boyfriend whom she had discovered was dating another woman.
Finally, board members tabled a vote on the teacher certificate of Nathan Holland.
Holland previously had a teacher certificate suspended in 2020 after being charged with raping a woman he met on a dating app. Holland was acquitted of rape charges in 2021, but Beason told board members that a law enforcement investigation discovered materials on his phone that constituted a violation of the teacher code of conduct. The board could take the matter up at a later date.
