You can read a little about it here

Oklahoma City, OK – While most people in Oklahoma City were focused on Valentines, a strong group of around 150 supporters gathered at the Oklahoma Theatre Supply to celebrate the resounding victory of Laura Massenat in the race for the Oklahoma City School Board in District 4.

“The amount of support that showed up for Election night party was indicative of the unwavering support we received throughout the race from local parents and citizens from across Distict 4,” Massenat stated while watching the returns roll in. “I am so grateful for the support that we have received and could not give a bigger thank you to the voters and citizens of District 4.”

Massenat avoided a runoff by winning over fifty percent of the vote in the Tuesday election against lobbyist, Patrick Gaines, and homeschool parent and veteran, Crystal Hodges. Hodges came in a close third though widely regarded as the underdog in the race, with Gaines just narrowly edging out Hodges for second place.

“I want to thank my opponents for taking an interest in the children of Oklahoma City and for a lively discussion of the issues,” said Massenat. “I’m glad that with this race behind us, we can all unite to focus on the future of our public schools and the best ways to improve educational opportunities for our children.”

Laura Massenat is the co-owner of Elemental Coffee and the founder of EatWise OKC, a group dedicated to advocating for healthy lifestyles for our children. Massenat is a political newcomer and has not held elected office or run for elected office in the past.

OKLAHOMA CITY – Now that many lawmakers are calling for a freeze on judicial pay and the salaries of all statewide officeholders, state Rep. Jason Nelson said it’s time to also freeze school superintendent salaries.

“Last year we saw hundreds of instances of superintendents getting pay raises while furloughing teachers and increasing class sizes,” said Nelson, R-Oklahoma City. “If it doesn’t make sense to give statewide officeholders a pay raise while Oklahoma is climbing out of recession, the same thing holds true for school superintendents at a time when education budgets have been cut. They should not be getting pay raises when teachers are being asked to do more with less.”

In a recent report, Oklahoma Watchdog found that 356 Oklahoma district superintendents (more than two-thirds) received some form of compensation increase this year. The combined expense of those raises was an extra $1.4 million annually.

Oklahoma Watchdog found that 37 of the superintendents receiving raises oversaw districts placed on the State Department of Education’s “Needs Improvement” list and 16 of those individuals received raises of $5,000 or more .

The Board of Judicial Compensation recently recommended pay increases for judges. Since the compensation of judges and statewide officials is linked, both would get a raise under that proposal.

State Rep. Scott Inman, leader of the House Democratic caucus, has been one of the most vocal critics of potential pay increases for statewide officeholders even though none of those officials could receive a salary increase during their current term in office.

Nelson said the Del City lawmaker should now join him in opposing superintendent pay raises.

“To protect school funding, we have to do more than oppose phantom pay raises that no current statewide officeholder is eligible to receive,” Nelson said. “It is ridiculous to complain about phantom pay raises for current statewide elected officials while ignoring $1.4 million in real pay raises for superintendents across the state.”

Last year, Nelson filed House Bill 1746 to require schools to spend at least 65 percent of funds on direct instructional activities within three years.

That bill included a provision that would have prevented superintendents from furloughing teachers without first having their financial plan reviewed by the State Board of Education so that classroom teachers would be protected.

“My legislation would have protected teachers from layoffs and furloughs, yet it was opposed by superintendents and their allies, including Representative Inman,” Nelson said. “I hope he and other opponents will now join me in standing up for teachers.”

Nelson praised State Superintendent of Public Instruction Janet Barresi, who announced she would not accept a pay raise when the issue was first raised this month.

“Superintendent Barresi did the right thing for Oklahoma students,” Nelson said. “Given that many local school superintendents are paid more than the governor or state superintendent, there is clearly no reason for local administrators to get a pay raise at the expense of teachers and classroom funding. It’s time to freeze superintendent pay.”

The $10.5 million school is scheduled to open by 2010. It is expected to help ease overcrowding on the district’s west side.

The 64,948-square-foot building will house about 520 students in prekindergarten through second grade. The new school will be paid for with 2007 bond money.

The meeting started out with a rather significant turnout, and Chairman Kirk Humphreys told the crowd they made up “the greatest number of happy people I’ve seen in some time.”

The school’s choir kicked off the meeting with two songs, and first-graders from Martin Luther King Elementary School followed with one more. I don’t know what to make of it, but I did notice that only two of the twelve first-graders were boys.

The audience dwindled to just less than 50 people, including district administrators, once those presentations and the recognitions of more than 70 teachers and students were done. In other words, there were no more public comments than usual — three people spoke last night — because the meeting was held out at a school site.

Still, I liked seeing more of a school, even if the lack of wireless Internet access meant I had to wait to file my story about a truancy contract until after the meeting. (UPDATE: This link will take you to the PowerPoint presentation made to the board last night about the truancy program.)

The move also made for a little more banter among board members. At a previous meeting, Thelma Parks made a small fuss about traveling elsewhere, and Humphreys offered to pick her up and alluded to the movie Driving Miss Daisy.

“I did come as Miss Daisy, and he was really nice to me,” Parks said Monday as the meeting came to a close.

“And she was totally charming,” Humphreys cut in before Parks wound down her remarks.

Wendy Kleinman
Education Reporter

-PERSONAL LOOK AT DISTRICT LAYOFFS:

-BOYCOTT MOVES TO THE BALL FIELD: An Illinois state senator from Chicago took his stab at school funding reform to last night’s playoff game between the Cubs and the Dodgers last night. Sen. James Meeks also led a student boycott of lower performing schools at the start of the year.

-CONFUSING STUDENT ASSESSMENTS: This Washington Post story talks about a literacy program’s assessments that start on a seemingly arbitrary scale of 2 to 16 and then switch to the letters J through P. I’m not questioning the scale or the program there, but the article did make me think about whether parents can always understand how their students are evaluated.

Wendy Kleinman
Education Reporter

To answer her question, I called Jeff Mills, the new executive director of the Oklahoma State School Boards Association.

I’ll start with his response about what a school board is: a local governing body of a school district whose members are either elected or appointed to represent the public. Now on to what they do.

“One of their main functions is to hire a superintendent or a CEO to run that organization. … Their other major responsibility is setting policy,” Mills told me.

He went on to explain: “If I’m a superintendent, I can set a directive or I can set an interoffice activity, but the board is responsible to set legal and legislative type policy to manage the district. … A school board wouldn’t necessarily be involved in the day-to-day operations — that’s what the superintendent or CEO is for.”

Now if you’re wondering just what types of policies he’s referring to, don’t worry, he elaborated. Such policy responsibilities can include everything from school safety to budgeting and expenditures, he said.

Oklahoma City School Board meeting, Sept. 2, 2008 / By Wendy K. Kleinman, The Oklahoman 

Mills also talked about the public comments issue that started this conversation.

“There are public participation policies out there, and some of those may limit (comments) to three minutes or so — each one will vary — and they may limit the number of people who may speak on one topic,” Mills said, “for the simple reason that if you have no order you could be there all night.”

UPDATE: To answer a question this entry prompted, school board members’ phone numbers and addresses, at least for Oklahoma City Public Schools, are available to the public. They are listed on this site.

Keep the comments and questions coming!

Wendy Kleinman
Education Reporter

Although his comments were made a few weeks ago, I’m bringing them up now because of a column in the most recent issue of The School Administrator magazine, which I just received.

The column is by Nicholas Caruso with the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education. You can read the whole piece here, but one line in particular intrigued me. He wrote:

The board meeting is a meeting held in public,
not a public meeting.

It seems to me that view aligns with Humphreys’ comments, while the parents I spoke with afterward said they feel as though the meetings belong to them. 

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Wendy Kleinman
Education Reporter

“Open the Debates” is the theme of Nader’s remarks, which reflect the Nader and vice presidential candidate Matt Gonzalez campaign’s call for inclusive, democratic presidential debates.

Nader will also address Oklahoma’s ballot access restrictions for independent and third party candidates, as well as issues concerning national public health care, the war in Iraq, energy and global warming policies and corporate crime.

OSU-Tulsa is located at 700 North Greenwood Avenue, near I-244 and Detroit Avenue. For more information, contact the Nader campaign at 202-471-5833.

So now that Barack Obama and John McCain have both formally accepted their nominations and spoken to the nation from their respective conventions, I thought I’d post information about each of their education plans. They all have a lot of ideas, so following are the links to the details of them.

McCain: www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/19ce50b5-daa8-4795-b92d-92bd0d985bca.htm
Obama: www.barackobama.com/issues/education

Poke around, read both sides, and come back here to share your thoughts.

Wendy Kleinman
Education Reporter