After threatening to take legal action against Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters if he did not post the legally required Open Meeting Act notice for the Oklahoma State Board of Education to hold a special meeting, members voted today to retain Oklahoma City attorney Ryan Leonard as the board’s new legal counsel — with Walters, the head of the state’s education agency and chairman of the board, conspicuously absent.
Wednesday’s decision came after four members expressed concern about the board’s prior designated counsel simultaneously representing Walters in his personal capacity. Members emailed the Attorney General’s Office with concerns that then-board attorney Chad Kutmas “does not adequately represent the interests of the full board, but rather aligns solely with State Superintendent Walters.”
“We have been requesting a new attorney,” board member Michael Tinney said Wednesday. “We have been requesting to get things put on the agenda, and that has been repudiated, even though I do not think that is improper. Then we actually requested — before this August meeting — again, to put that on the agenda and to talk about an attorney. And we got no response from that. Then we found out, without any input from the board, that meeting was canceled. And so we felt like that left us no choice but to go ahead and call a special board meeting.”
In a remarkably brief meeting lasting less than 10 minutes, Tinney and fellow board members Ryan Deatherage, Becky Carson and Chris VanDenhende voted 4-0 to retain Leonard as legal counsel. They took another quick 4-0 vote to open the nomination process for a new board secretary before adjourning.
Those four board members — three of whom were appointed to the board by Gov. Kevin Stitt in early February — were the only ones to attend Wednesday’s meeting at the State Capitol, as Walters and long-time board members Sarah Lepak and Zachary Archer were absent. Although some board members said they were expecting Walters to miss the special meeting, Tinney said he reached out to Lepak, who was not present owing to a prior commitment as an adjunct instructor at the University of Oklahoma.
“Our issue is that [former SBE attorney Chad Kutmas] did not understand who his client was,” VanDenhende told media after the meeting. “He believed his client was Ryan Walters, the chairman or president of the board. That was not his role — it was to represent the full board. So hopefully, when we have an attorney that represents the whole board, we can start moving things forward. But it’s no fantasy, there is no promise anything is going to change.”
VanDenhende said he has “likened” serving on the State Board of Education “to hand-to-hand combat.”
“Every single day, there is something else that we have to deal with,” he said. “So there is no promise other than the fact that we are in a better position to address the needs of the students of Oklahoma with a new attorney.”
Drummond criticizes ‘politically connected’ Leonard
Ryan Leonard is a partner at Oklahoma City-based law firm Leonard, Long & Cassil practicing “primarily in the areas of business law and litigation, receiverships and Native American law,” according to the firm’s website.
Before venturing into private practice, Leonard served as a state prosecutor and a legislative assistant for former U.S. Sen. Don Nickles (R-OK). Leonard ran for attorney general in 2010, but he was defeated by Scott Pruitt.
In October 2020, Stitt announced he had hired Leonard to serve as special counsel for Native American affairs to assist his administration on issues arising from the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, which functionally affirmed the eastern half of Oklahoma as a series of Indian Country reservations where only tribal nations and the federal government have criminal jurisdiction over crimes committed by and against Indians. Leonard served as co-counsel for the state in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, a subsequent SCOTUS case that upended federal precedent by finding that states have concurrent jurisdiction over people who commit crimes against tribal citizens within Indian Country.
Although board members did not openly discuss their selection of Leonard as their new attorney, Tinney said he felt Leonard was well-suited for the position.
“I have tried to check out and find things about Mr. Leonard, and everything shows me that he is well-qualified to do this job,” Tinney, an attorney himself, said during the meeting.
Despite Walters’ absence, OSDE press secretary Madison Cercy emailed reporters after the meeting with a statement.
“Superintendent Walters is focused on tackling the big issues facing Oklahoma schools and is pleased to welcome Ryan Leonard to the team,” Cercy said.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, however, voiced his displeasure at Leonard’s hiring, using the meeting to criticize Walters and the current board members’ performance. Drummond has been campaigning for the governorship in 2026, and Walters is widely viewed as a potential foe in the Republican primary election.
“The latest political drama is yet another squabble between Gov. Stitt’s hand-picked state superintendent of public instruction and his hand-picked State Board of Education members. It seems neither side can agree on which attorney is best to advise them as they do further damage to Oklahoma’s public schools,” Drummond said in a press release. “The board’s decision to hire a politically connected attorney with little to no experience advising a state board is yet another example of the dysfunction that has plagued public education since Gov. Stitt first appointed Ryan Walters. While Mr. Leonard may be a talented plaintiff’s attorney and has counseled the governor through various legal battles against Oklahoma’s Native American tribes, he is woefully inadequate to serve as general counsel to the State Board of Education.”
Leonard, who initially told NonDoc on Wednesday that he would not be commenting on his new role, found Drummond’s comment to be insulting.
“The attorney general’s statement is wrong. We regularly represent state agencies, and I have represented the insurance commissioner, the Department of Transportation, the state auditor and [the Office of Management and Enterprise Services], just to name a few,” Leonard said. “So I don’t know what politics might be at play, but I am willing to step up and perform this role solely as a public service to this state.”
Leonard declined to answer questions about how he will approach advising a board beset with policy disagreements and personal criticisms, but he emphasized his frustration with the press release from Drummond, who personally intervened to convince Kutmas’ firm to step away from its contract representing the board.
“I hadn’t planned to make a statement today, but I was very disappointed in the attorney general’s comments,” Leonard said. “I have been in active communications with his office over the past several days and had been led to believe since these discussions started that he not only was supportive of me performing this role but actively wanted me to take this job. The only reason I am doing this is as a public service for the school children of this state, and it is critically important that the Board of Education have able legal representation.”
Oklahoma Secretary of Education Nellie Sanders — who originally posted the agenda for Wednesday’s meeting before OSDE filed the official notice — said the special meeting allowed the State board of Education to get back to work amid various issues.
“The number one job of the board is to serve the students of Oklahoma, and if they are unable to do the business of the board because they do not have the staff, they are not able to serve the function of the board,” Sanders after adjournment. “When you cannot get things on the agenda to be able to do that — and they have been needing that — this was a critical piece to be able to move forward and be able to function as a board to serve students of our state.”
‘You don’t call people liars’
In the weeks prior to Wednesday’s meeting, State Board of Education members requested a new board attorney, citing concerns that Kutmas carried a conflict of interest by representing Walters personally in a defamation lawsuit filed by then-Bixby Superintendent Rob Miller. After August’s regular board meeting was canceled by Walters without explanation, members requested that he post an official notice for a special meeting to allow the board to retain an attorney they felt represents the whole board and not just Walters. Board members also worked with attorney Bob Burke to request a special meeting notice be posted after the last-minute cancelation of the Aug. 28 regular board meeting.
After Walters apparently ignored board members’ requests for a special meeting, Burke sent Walters an Aug. 28 email formally requesting the gathering.
“They previously asked for a special meeting of the Board of Education for the purpose of retaining the services of an attorney approved by the attorney general to represent the board’s interest,” wrote Burke. “To date, you have refused to schedule such a special meeting. (…) Please consider this letter as another request by the four board members named above for a special meeting for the purpose set forth above. If lawful notice of the special meeting is not posted by the Oklahoma State Department of Education by 9 a.m., Tuesday (…), I am prepared to ask the Oklahoma Supreme Court to issue a Writ of Mandamus and order you to set the special meeting.”
Ultimately, OSDE officials posted the agenda to the agency’s website.
Walters’ rocky relationship with the new board members only became rougher after Carson and Deatherage reported seeing nudity on Walters’ office TV during a July 24 board meeting executive session. Oklahoma House Speaker Kyle Hilbert (R-Bristow) suggested the confusing scenario unfolded when the 1985 Jackie Chan film The Protector somehow played on the Samsung television. Walters called the board members’ claims “lies,” made false statements about the TV’s capabilities and suggested Stitt’s appointees were working with the governor in a coordinated political attack. Carson, in turn, accused Walters of lying and “character assassination.”
After Wednesday’s meeting adjourned, Carson, Tinney and VanDenhende said they have had very little recent contact with Walters. Carson said she has not received an apology for Walters’ previous statements, but she said she would accept one if offered.
“Sure, I think anyone in this position would appreciate an apology,” Carson said after the meeting.
Chairman of the House Common Education Committee Dick Lowe said Wednesday he also has not had a conversation with Walters “in a while.” However, he said he was disappointed with Walters’ comments toward board members over the TV-screen debable.
“I was taught at a young age, you do not call people liars. I am just honest,” said Lowe (R-Amber). “We can disagree, we may not see things [the same], but I am not going to do that, so that was disappointing to me. (…) I am always disappointed in anybody to call names. I do not know if I have ever seen that help anything, so I try not to. My dad is no longer with us, but I do not want him to reach up out the grave and slap me upside the head, because he taught me better than that.”
(Correction: This story was updated minutes after publication to correct the spelling of Chris VanDenhende, which is misspelled on the official State Board of Education website.)
