Three of the four candidates vying to represent District 3 on the Tulsa Public Schools Board of Education braved a cold drizzle to speak to a few dozen potential voters at a candidate forum Tuesday night. Dorie Simmons, Kyra Carby and Eartha McAlester attended the event at McLain High School, which was hosted by the Tulsa Classroom Teachers Association and the League of Women Voters. Candidate Brandi Joseph did not attend.
One of the night’s biggest moments of contention occurred not among the candidates, but between the moderators and someone in the audience. At the beginning of the forum, moderators announced that questions were prewritten and not shared with candidates.
“Do I hear you say that you’re not allowing questions from the audience?” one person asked the moderators. When told that was correct, the audience member loudly declared, “I’m leaving, what’s the point,” before staying for the remainder of the event.
Tension in the audience aside, candidates found common ground in advocating for increasing transparency in the district, retaining teachers and supporting parent teacher associations. None of the three attending could identify a piece of legislation they found positive for public schools, and they castigated recent proposals for the State Department of Education and Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters.
The four candidates are hoping to succeed outgoing Tulsa Public Schools District 3 school board member Jennettie Marshall, who has served on the school board since 2016 and did not file for reelection. The primary election will be held Feb. 11.
TPS District 3 includes essentially all of Tulsa north of Pine Street, along with a few areas south of Pine Street. If no candidate captures more than 50 percent of the vote Feb. 11, the top two candidates will advance to an April 1 runoff. Presented alphabetically, candidate biographies included in the cheat sheet below were crafted from candidate websites, social media accounts, publicly available information and statements from the Feb. 4 candidate forum.
Kyra Carby
Age: 39
Profession/Background: Kyra Carby has professional experience as chef, teacher and community engagement manager, according to her LinkedIn. After working at restaurants and bakeries during the mid-2010s, she worked for Tulsa Public Schools from 2017 to 2022 as a teacher at Gilcrease and John Hope Franklin elementary schools. After leaving TPS, Carby switched to community engagement and worked for both the Guthrie Green and the Gathering Place from 2022 to 2024. In June, she joined the City of Tulsa as its community genealogy grant coordinator, a position in charge of administering a federal grant to fund genealogical research related to the Tulsa Race Massacre. She is also of Muscogee descent.
Platform: Carby’s platform includes increasing resources allocated to students and teachers, improving the district’s transparency and strengthening community schools. At the candidate forum, she emphasized District 3’s need for a collaborative board member.
“I think it is imperative that we realize that education is a part of any thriving community,” Carby said. “If we don’t encourage education, what are we saying about the future of our entire city? The district deserves a board member that will collaborate with others.”
When asked about the “most egregious” policies for public schools, Carby targeted a new OSDE rule about documenting citizenship status.
“I will say that the one thing that I think is the worst that can happen to our students is that disclosing documentation status for our students. It’s unconstitutional. It is detrimental to our society,” she said.
Links:Â Personal Facebook | Linkedin | Website
Brandi Joseph
Age: 49
Profession/Background: Brandi Joseph moved to Tulsa in the 1990s to attend Oral Roberts University, where she earned a degree in mass media communication. She is active as a volunteer with Victory Christian Church, she works in media, and she runs a small product sales business, according to her website.
Platform: Issues listed as important to Joseph include improving student outcomes, promoting a “parent’s rights to be involved and engaged in their child’s education” and protecting teachers from “district retaliation.”
She also advocates for ensuring a “safe learning environment” and addressing the teacher shortage, in part by advocating for pay raises.
Rep. Gabe Woolley (R-Broken Arrow), one of the House’s newest and more active members on social media, gave Jospeh an early endorsement in December.
“Tulsa has been run into the ground by California liberalism for too long and we must turn it around,” Woolley said.
Joseph did not attend the Feb. 4 candidate forum and does not appear to have any other interview appearances available online.
Eartha McAlester
Age: 46
Profession/Background: Eartha McAlester grew up in Sallisaw and graduated from Langston University with a degree in psychology. She worked as a teaching aid and paraprofessional for Tulsa Public School in the 2010s. She appears to have been a party to an unsuccessful lawsuit against the state of Oklahoma over the Tulsa Race Massacre in the early- to mid-2000s. Most recently, she has served on the Tulsa Public Schools Early Childhood Parent Council for this school year.
Platform: During the candidate forum, McAlester emphasized that Tulsa Public Schools exists for “all” students, and she said board members needed to put all students before their personal politics.
“I think that a deterrent (to the board working well) would be going into things personally thinking and not for all,” McAlester said. “With all the changes going on in the world, personal thinking can have a lasting effect, so be[ing] consistent, transparent and practicing equity is a great place to start.”
As part of that desire to serve “all” students, McAlester takes exception to the idea of Walters’ proposal to mandate Bibles in classrooms.
“The Bibles in school is a big deal to me. No matter if I’m a believer or not (…) [if] we are not able to support every religion, every spiritual belief, then I don’t think it is OK to support just one,” she said. “That is not OK, because it’s not supporting all, and that’s not the way Tulsa Public Schools claims that they do things. We support all students. No matter what your demographic or socio-economic status, we support you.”
Links:Â Facebook | Personal Facebook
Dorie Simmons
Age: 50
Profession/Background: Dorie Simmons, a University of Tulsa graduate, is a Realtor and president of the Edison High School Boys Basketball booster club, a position she previously held from 2000 to 2013, according to her website. She describes herself as a “lifelong Oklahoman” and a “proud mother” who had her first child at 15. Her children have attended schools across the district, including Booker T. Washington High School, Thomas Edison Preparatory, Central High School, Carver Middle School, McLain High School and Barnard Elementary.
Platform: Simmons’ campaign priorities include improving student outcomes, increasing board transparency and supporting both parents and teachers. At the candidate forum, she said the board should focus on both supporting the current superintendent, Ebony Johnson, while making sure she is also held accountable for her performance.
“Accountability at the board level is very important,” Simmons said. “I do think Dr. Johnson is a very capable superintendent, and with that comes accountability. So it is our job as school board members to support her and to make sure that we help her become successful and continue to be successful and, yet, hold her accountable.”
On statewide education issues, Simmons said recent proposals seem geared toward “the political gain of the person who is running the public school system down in Oklahoma City,” not students.
“When we take the children and we take families out of public school, (then) they don’t have a public school system any longer. When we allow school vouchers to go to the private sector, when they can pay for private school to begin with, we have a problem. When we force children to have Bibles in school under the pretense that there is some literary gain from it, we have a problem. When we require students to provide birth certificates and proof of citizenship to come into our school system, we have a problem,” she said. “These are all things District 3 disproportionately faces when it comes to the public school system.”
Links:Â Website
