With Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters announcing sweeping new plans for 2025 administrative rule changes and proposed amendments to social studies standards, the State Board of Education met Thursday and took action on two months’ worth of teaching certification agenda items.
Early Thursday morning, the Oklahoma State Department of Education posted the proposed new social studies standards for Oklahoma public school classrooms pre-kindergarten through grade 12. The standards are open for public comment through Jan. 21.
“These standards are pro-American, they’re pro-American exceptionalism and they strengthen civics and an understanding of our Constitution and every great book underneath these standards,” Walters said. “Our children will learn the full and true context of our nation’s founding and the principles that made America great and will continue to make us an exceptional country. In these standards, they championed the guidance that the Bible gave throughout American history as we rolled out our Bible initiatives earlier in the year.”
Supporting his previous comments attacking “woke teachers unions” and “left-wing content,” Walters said the new standards are the most “expansive” they have ever been.
Walters said the proposed standards include more than 50 references to the Bible and Christianity — compared to the prior 2019 standards that only had two references, according to Walters — and more content on the history of sovereign tribal nations, along with requirements to teach the impact of the Tulsa Greenwood District and civil rights issues in Oklahoma history.
“Our children deserve better,” Walters said. “Our children deserve more, and the standards deliver on them. I am proud that Oklahoma is taking the lead in putting President Trump’s education agenda into practice. We are presenting a successful model that should be emulated by every state in the country on how to restore public education.”
The Oklahoma Academic Standards for Social Studies were last revised and reviewed in 2019 — a time when Walters served on the “executive committee” that oversees and guides the process of academic standard revisions. At the time, Walters sent a letter praising the 2019 standards and said they “foster an environment that creates a love of history due to the engaging nature,” according to a report from The Oklahoman.
Three committees — the executive committee, writing committee and draft review committee — made up of educators, community leaders and stakeholders are responsible for reviewing and revising the Oklahoma academic standards. The standards are expected to be presented to the state board during its February meeting and, pending acceptance, would be sent to the Oklahoma Legislature for approval.
Similarly, Walters briefly touched on proposed 2025 administrative rule changes posted to the OSDE website Monday. Administrative rules are open to public comment — via email — through Jan. 17, the same day as multiple scheduled hearings for the State Board of Education to consider adopting the rules.
As proposed, the administrative rule changes include multiple amendments and revocations, most notably creating regulations around individual school districts providing OSDE with data on the number of enrolled students whose citizenship status is undocumented.
“We have to know how many illegal immigrants are in our schools so that we know how to allocate resources, so that we know how to solve the issues that arise with that,” Walters said. “We will continue to move forward to ensure that we are preventing any kind of illegal immigration movement into our state and into our schools.”
Although many changes were proposed, Walters focused during his comments on a handful of policies:
- a new flag policy allowing flags to be flown on all campuses without infringement;
- a policy to “eradicate” diversity, equity, and inclusion programs;
- reporting requirements of educators who resign “under the suspicion of abusing or neglecting a child”; and
- his idea for new legislation requiring elections for district superintendents, which he announced Dec. 4 via press release.
“We’ve seen rogue superintendents that have disobeyed the law, pushed pornography in the classroom, undermined the effort of the voters of Oklahoma, and it’s time that they’re held accountable by their voters, by parents and grandparents, their community,” Walters said at the meeting.
Walters’ proposal would specify dates for primary and general elections, eligibility requirements, rules for filling a superintendent vacancy, the process for determination of compensation, and other administrative rules and processes, according to the press release.
Walters did not comment of the proposed amendments to OSDE’s open records policy or the proposed complete revocation of the civil rights section of the administrative rules, but he confidently supported his proposals using a well-known Martin Luther King Jr. quote.
“We want our systems to value reward teachers and students based on their merit and ability,” Walters said. “Or, as Martin Luther King, Jr. so eloquently said, ‘By the content of their character.’”
The State Board of Education must vote on and approve the proposed administrative rules before the changes are sent to the Legislature for review.
Legislators join board in executive session
For the first time since the July 31 special meeting, the State Board of Education entered into executive session before taking action on numerous teaching certificate suspensions, revocations and voluntary surrenders.
The board had avoided going into executive session following Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s Aug. 21 opinion directing the board to follow the statute allowing qualified legislators to observe executive sessions when a lawmaker serves on a legislative committee that has oversight of that agency.
During Thursday’s executive session, Senate Minority Leader Julia Kirt (D-OKC), House Common Education Committee Chairman Dick Lowe (R-Amber) and freshman Rep. Gabe Woolley (R-Broken Arrow) all entered the back room with board members.
After returning to open session, the board suspended teaching certificates for 10 people and moved to send applications to revoke their certificates to hearing officers:
- Kimberly Coody, the assistant superintendent of Glenpool Public Schools, who was put on administrative leave after the district board was notified of an OSDE investigation into her, according to GPS Superintendent Curtis Layton. Layton sent his colleagues an email on the Coody inquiry, which was shared on Twitter on Oct. 23;
- Andrew Swartz, a Sulphur public school teacher and licensed medical marijuana industry employee, who pleaded guilty in Washita County District Court to one count of trafficking illegal drugs. Swartz was arrested for having an incorrect manifest while carrying 46 pounds of packaged marijuana, and his plea resulted in a deferred judgement of probation and parole for four years;
- Mickey Replogle, the former principal of Bixby High School, who was arrested in late September after students and adults reported Replogle inappropriately touched multiple students and smelled of alcohol at a school dance;
- Melanie Brownfield, who was a Moore Public Schools speech language pathologist, according to a LinkedIn profile registered under the same name;
- Karl King, a former Glenpool math teacher who was suspended before being allowed to resign following allegations of inappropriately touching a student, according to a Sept. 10 lawsuit filed against King by the student’s mother. King allegedly slapped the butt of the female fifth-grade student and telling her “good job” after turning in an assignment, according to KTUL.;
- Billy J. Little, who was operating on an alternative standard teaching certificate;
- Courtney Peck, who is a former Hinton High School teacher;
- Jacob Peck, a former Hinton High School wrestling coach who was arrested in March 2023 and is currently facing one charge of felony child abuse after allegedly grabbing a female student on the wrestling team by the throat after practice. Two other female students have since came forward citing similar interactions with Jacob Peck but decided not to pursue charges, according to KFOR;
- Jennifer Enyart, a former Wyandotte Public Schools teacher who has been charged in U.S. District Court with one count of child neglect and one count of assault and battery with the use of a deadly weapon. Enyart and her husband Keith Enyart are accused of abusing their adopted disabled child, according to Fox 23; and
- Cody Richison, a former agricultural education instructor and Future Farmers of America advisor at Holdenville High School, who was arrested on campus by the FBI on Dec. 4. A report from KOCO said Richison is alleged to have received photos and videos of child sexual abuse, and he also faces a child sex allegation.
Considering the proposed findings from hearing officers on previously examined cases, board members also made final determinations to accept recommendations from hearing officers on six teachers’ certificates:
- Toya Benton, a former Oklahoma City Public Schools teacher who was arrested in May 2021 for public drunkenness and assault;
- John Boggs III, a McCurtain Public Schools teacher certified in agricultural education who was charged in Haskell County in March with one felony count of engaging in prostitution within 1,000 feet of a school;
- Vernon Thetford, a former Lexington High School teacher who was charged in April with five counts involving lewd acts with a minor;
- Floyd Robinson, a Bristow Public Schools employee who faces three felony counts related to allegedly using his phone to record students while they were undressed in a locker room;
- Kimberly Coates, a former third-grade teacher at Perkins Elementary School who was arrested in August 2023 for public intoxication while on the job and again in November 2023 after appearing intoxicated at her public intoxication hearing in the Payne County Courthouse, according to KOKH; and
- James Miller, a Braggs Middle School teacher was arrested and jailed on a $500,000 bond under the suspicion of second-degree rape, first-degree rape by instrumentation, sexual battery and other crimes, according to a Jan. 4 report from News on 6.
Board members rejected one recommendation regarding former Wewoka youth pastor and middle school principal Cody Barlow and decided to send his case back to a hearing officer for reconsideration.
Barlow was suspended from his position and charged with two counts of indecent acts and four counts of indecent proposals to a child under 16. Following a jury trial, Barlow was found not guilty on all charges after taking the stand to explain videos of him “spanking students and pulling up their pants,” according to KFOR.
Board members voted to suspend the certificate of Shawnee Public Schools Superintendent Aaron P. Espolt, who is facing allegations of inappropriate relationships with students, despite denying the accusations of engaging in any behavior constituting misconduct.
Shawnee’s school board placed Espolt on paid administrative leave in August owing to an OSDE rule that bars the school district from maintaining an “active employment or contract of (…) a certified employee currently under investigation for certificate revocation.” Shawnee Board of Education President Clif Harden published a letter on the Shawnee Public Schools website addressing the investigation.
“However, the Board of Education has no reason to believe that the investigation relates to Dr. Espolt’s time at Shawnee Public Schools,” Harden wrote in the letter.
The accusations against Espolt stem from 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. Espolt also served as the superintendent for Olive Public Schools in 2020. In 2021, he worked for the State Department of Education as the executive director of school design and innovation under former State Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister.
In an attempt to halt the suspension of his teaching certificate, Espolt filed an Aug. 25 lawsuit and request for a temporary restraining order against the State Board of Education, resulting in the board’s decision to postpone the vote to approve the suspension of Espolt’s certificate under the condition he stays on administrative leave. With Espolt’s certificate now suspended, the board moved to send an application to revoke his teaching certificate to a hearing officer.
The board chose to take no action on the license of teacher Nathan Holland, who originally had his certificate suspended in 2020 after being charged with two counts of first-degree rape. However, he was found not guilty following a jury trial in April 2021.
Besides the certificates considered for suspension or revocation, board members also accepted the voluntary surrender of nine teachers’ certificates:
- Brandi Price, a former Mannsville Public School superintendent, who pleaded guilty to a criminal misdemeanor following her arrest for public intoxication on school grounds while class was in session;
- Kevin Frazier, a former Ponca City High School teacher, who was suspended and later resigned after photos of students in bathing suits were found on his phone, according to The Ponca City News;
- Waylon Heavin, a Verden High School baseball coach and chemistry, computer, math and science teacher who left the school in January, according to his LinkedIn profile;
- Roger Hoffman;
- Tisha Morris;
- Kayla Sutton, a former Canton Public Schools English language arts teacher;
- Lyla Lynn, a former assistant band director at Cleveland Public Schools, according to her LinkedIn profile;
- Leon Ashlock, a former Muldrow Public Schools superintendent who was arrested and charged with one count of driving under the influence and one count of transporting an open container of liquor in November; and
- Betty Buff.
