It’s been a multi-week sprint for Tulsa Public Schools to inform the public — and get them on board — with its budget reduction plan. Students, staff and board members are still asking for the finer details.
“This isn’t about blaming. Budgets are tight, and people in the central office have work to do,” Sequoyah Elementary teacher Justin Tomlinson, aka “Mr. J,” said at Monday’s school board meeting. “I’m asking for an order of operations. Which as an art teacher, it’s weird to use a math term. There you go.”
Communities across the city have since rallied in support of the 14 elementary schools, two middle schools and an alternative site up for closure. They’re worried about class sizes, neighborhoods and staffing. While the district has repeatedly addressed these topics online and in-person, questions linger.
“There are things I cannot accept. I cannot accept running in my classroom. I cannot accept people disrespecting each other in my classroom, and I cannot accept classrooms absorbing the budget problems before anything else is touched,” Tomlinson said before asking the district to show they looked at alternatives before cutting schools.
Supporters of the eastside’s Dolores Huerta Elementary have collected around 400 signatures in an attempt to save the school, and families at midtown’s Hoover Elementary recently involved their city representative in the discussion. Despite those efforts, the closure list remains unchanged.
Hoover fifth grader Belle Terry made her own appeal to the board.
“My life here in Tulsa, along with so many others who have gone to Hoover in the last 71 years would not be as great without it. Today, I ask you to think about the roots there,” she said. “Think of all the grandparents and parents who have gone there and think of the ones that will never get to go there if the school closes. If Hoover shuts down the Hoover community will suffer in the heart of the neighborhood will stop beating.”
Learn more about Tulsa Public Schools’ budget plan
TPS is hosting a series of community information sessions about its proposal to close and consolidate 17 campuses. Find the latest details here.
- 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Oct. 6: Bronson Brookside Library (4607 S. Madison Place)
- 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Oct. 7: In-person/virtual hybrid session presented in Spanish (714 N. Harvard Ave.)
- 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Oct. 8: Parent Resource Center (525 E. 46th St. N.)
- 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Oct. 12: Central Library Downtown (400 Civic Center)
- 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Oct. 14: Zarrow Regional Library (2224 W. 51st St.)
The majority of TPS’ student population is Hispanic. That’s also true at 12 of the schools poised for closure. One community session is set specifically for Tulsa’s Spanish-speaking population Oct. 7.
That meeting — previously virtual — is now hybrid at Sequoyah Hills Baptist Church, 714 N. Harvard Ave. The virtual option is linked here. While other meetings include headset translation, Wednesday’s will be primarily presented in Spanish and interpreted live from Spanish to English.
The board has until Oct. 19 to weigh the district’s proposal. Board members emphasize no decisions have been finalized at this point.
“We have a tendency to speak in the ‘when this happens’ rather than ‘if this happens,’ and it’s only for simplification of the conversation, because I don’t think anybody up here has made up their mind,” said board member Stacey Woolley Monday. “Although, I would say that I personally have very strong feelings about what it means to create equitable opportunities for our students.”
Ahead of remaining community meetings, here’s a recap of what’s been shared so far.
TPS has undergone several rounds of reductions, including cutting a net of nearly 40 staff from its central office as well as outside vendors.
The district is proposing another $1.5 million in central office cuts and is planning to leave two executive leadership positions open next year following Deputy Superintendent Kathy Dodd’s September resignation and the upcoming retirement of Chief Information and Operations Officer Joe Jennings.
The district expects to save $11.1 million by closing 17 schools, but calculating how much will be saved at each school up for closure is complicated, said TPS staff. Board members requested estimates on expected operations savings per each building Monday night.
TPS administrators did not change class size limits in the proposal. Currently, the district says 91% of its traditional elementary classrooms are below the target ratios for students to teachers. While the limits won’t change, class sizes may increase if more students are in fewer schools.
Current student to teacher ratio limits are below:
- PreK: 20:1
- K-2: 28:1 (target ratio 24:1)
- Grades 3-5: 34:1 (target ratio 28:1)
- Middle: 29:1
- High: 33:1
The schools selected for closure or consolidation are not expected to see enrollment increases in the future. To see what enrollment rates looked like at the end of last year, read our story.
Students who move schools can expect frequent communication from the district and open houses before next year, said Superintendent Ebony Johnson.
Details for transportation to new schools will not be available until after the district’s enrollment period in early 2027. Special education students are still legally guaranteed transportation services.
TPS has also set up a “pre-transition support team” to support staff and students at both closing and receiving schools, she added. According to district spokeswoman Caroline Crouch, the group includes around a dozen staff from academics, operations and facilities.
The district expects $8.5 in staffing savings, primarily through attrition.
TPS hires between 300 and 500 teaching staff each summer, in addition to around 100 support staff. Administrators say those vacancies will go unfilled this summer, with the exception of some high-need roles like those in special education.
Highly-qualified, certified teachers will be prioritized, said Johnson, though it is not guaranteed that any affected staff would be placed in the same position they currently fill. Any staff eliminations — including in the central office — would need to be board-approved.
“Please know that if there is any information that you receive that is causing you to question how much we are committed to you as educators, I ask and beg you to please reach out so that you can get the clarity that you need, you can get the correct information, and that you know that we are better together,” Johnson said Monday.
The district will still maintain closed buildings, but it expects to save 75% of its utility costs for each site. The proposal’s cost projections do not include revenue from building sales, which would go into the building fund — not the general fund at the center of TPS’ budget pinch.
Johnson has repeatedly stated the district does not have plans for selling buildings for specific redevelopment efforts, but she has suggested the properties, if surplused, could be used for childcare or mental health needs.
Not all closed sites would be considered for surplus or sale, administrators say.
Under the current proposal, Thoreau Demonstration Academy would be utilized as a teacher training center, but Johnson said it could become a school again if future enrollment demands it. As the southernmost campus in TPS, she said, it’s not likely to end up as surplus.
“We are not interested in having buildings that are prime real estate to then be on the market, if you will, for neighboring districts,” Johnson said. “In that particular case of Thoreau, that would probably be the first three to four or five hands raised up in order to purchase that building from us in order to grow their numbers and decrease our numbers.”
Board members asked Monday whether highly-popular immersion schools could be rehomed in larger school sites on the closure list — naming Eisenhower and Zarrow International Schools. Under the district’s current proposal, Felicitas Mendez International School, an in-demand immersion magnet, is slated to move into Anderson Elementary’s larger campus.
The district may come back to the board with a revised proposal incorporating international school moves or other changes Oct. 19.
Angelica Perez contributed reporting to this story.
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