Lindel Fields is nearly a month into his time as interim state superintendent of education. The former CareerTech administrator took over following the resignation of Ryan Walters in September.
In an interview with the Flyer, the Tulsa Public Schools parent shared what his team has been working on since he took office.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
There are a lot of expectations for your leadership and revitalized office. At the end of 15 months, what would success look like for you?
You know, it’s been my goal all along to ensure a solid foundation is in place for the next person and I think that looks like the person can come in and not be on a treadmill, and they can get straight to work on what matters. Alongside that, I think a united voice around what we can do to improve literacy at the early ages would be a great success. So if we can get those two things done I think we could feel pretty good about our 14 months.
I know student literacy is especially a priority for you, you talked about that in your appointment speech. For literacy, teacher retention and career pathways, what specific steps will your team take in that short window to start pushing the state toward progress?
So just as I mentioned, what success looks like, it’s getting everybody on the same page. You know, we have lots of ideas and lots of great ideas from lots of people who have well-meaning intentions, but sometimes less is more. So again, having a united front of what success could look like for literacy between the legislature, (State Department of Education) and education at large, I think that would be a good step. There’s been a lot of conversation about the Mississippi (Miracle). There’s lots that we could learn from that. So I think having a united front of what policy could look like would be a great, great start.
Then on teacher retention, we’re hearing such positive things about teachers that are coming back or excited and bringing a bit of — I guess I’d say, a B-12 shot back to teaching, being the most noble of all professions — so, pride in teaching.
Finally with the career pathways, clarity around what that could look like, whether it’s revitalizing the ICAP (Individual Career Academic Planning) or making adjustments to that would be the three things we could do in each of those areas.
You said in October that you and your turnaround team were promising to review all organizational misalignments inside the department in addition to finances, contracts and lawsuits. What have you discovered in the early stages of the process, trying to realign the department?
Well, you know, you probably kept up with the big things that we’ve taken action on. So we’re right now determining what our process is going to be for reviewing and approving contracts. There’s a lot of money that flows through the agency and so we’re just reviewing those contracts specifically right now as the thing that’s kind of floated to the top. I just worked on that today so it’s top of mind.
We just need a little time to learn what everybody’s doing, what their roles are. And before we can make any corrections, we gotta see what we have to see what’s misaligned.
When you say you’re reviewing contracts, does that mean you’re looking for misspending or for contracts that you might terminate from the department?
I don’t know necessarily about misspending … just to see if they’re still valid. Do we still need them? Sometimes we just, we add stuff but you don’t take things away. It’s not to suggest anybody’s done anything wrong, just a fresh set of eyes to determine if we still need to be doing some of those things.
I’ve seen that you’ve been on quite the listening tour in the past few weeks. I’m curious to know who’ve you met with in the Tulsa area and what they’ve requested of you?
We met with a large group of superintendents and administrators — the TCASA (the Tulsa County Association of School Administrators) group — and it was a variety of topics ranging from number of school days to teacher preparation programs and everything in between. It was just a dialogue of exchanging ideas and people having the opportunity to share their feelings, to be heard.
Is there a larger theme that you’ve taken away in the last three weeks from superintendents, teachers, educators?
No, I don’t. I can’t say there’s any themes. I do feel like people are rallying around literacy, teacher recruitment and retention, which shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody. So I think there is a lot of conversation about that, but in terms of other things, it’s still a shotgun all over the place right now.
In the last few years, Oklahoma has unfortunately become synonymous with struggling public K-12 education. You’ve been in the job for three weeks, but how do you reckon with that reputation?
You know, 50th’s thrown out a lot, you’re 48th, 33rd and everything in between. And, regardless of the number, I think everybody would agree that we can do better. So our goal is just to look moving forward, what can we do to not only affect that number but make sure we’re providing the best education for the kids in our schools?
What do you think northeastern Oklahoma has to celebrate and what do you think they should focus on growing?
Northeast Oklahoma represents much of Oklahoma and proud educators, people who mean well and are doing their best to educate our kids. You mention Tulsa Public Schools, I think they have terrific leadership that needs an opportunity to do what they do best. I think the thing they all have in common is they have people who are committed to education.
We have really no shortage of philanthropic programs that are filling the gaps in our public school system — some Tulsans think that is a weakness and some think that is a strength of the area. Do you have an opinion on what the relationship should be between philanthropic organizations and public schools?
I don’t know the specifics around those relationships. I think having those relationships are important as long as they support the goals of the district. In other words, we don’t wanna just have a relationship for the sake of having a relationship or maybe getting a grant. They need to be very specific to the goals of the organization, so if the organization is aligned with the goals of the district, that provides a happy balance.
In my conversations with Tulsa educators — and I’m sure you hear this as well — many people say problems at home and holes in the social safety net are perpetuating struggles in the classroom and less than ideal outcomes. Will improving the social welfare of families in Oklahoma be a priority for your office?
I think it’s fair to say that challenges at home make it challenging for schools, not just in Tulsa but anywhere, you know? Do we have the capacity in the next 14 months to affect all of those things? I think we just have to focus on what we can focus on, and I believe educators understand the challenges that are faced … so supporting our educators is probably the best we can do at this time.
Do you think Oklahoma is currently prepared to build well-educated kids well into the future?
Oh, I think so. Do we need to make some adjustments along the way? Probably. I don’t know what those are, I think we need to look to other states and best practices and how they are organized. (That) might be a good place to start. But if we look at the people and the teachers, I’m sure we have the talent there, it’s just aligning all that talent.
And again, focusing on what we can, what we can really be good at. You know, when you try to be everything to everybody you can’t be anything to anybody, so that’s why I keep stressing: Let’s just focus on the building blocks.
What is something that Oklahoma education is really excelling at right now?
Excelling at — it’d be hard to pinpoint one thing being just a month in. I think our teacher prep programs are doing a good job, I think our CareerTech programs are excelling in Oklahoma. So that’ll be a couple things that I would point to.
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