Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton
Tulsa World Reporter
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OKLAHOMA CITY — The tug-of-war between state Superintendent Ryan Walters and members of the Oklahoma State Board of Education continued Thursday morning at the Oliver Hodge Building.
Less than 12 hours after Walters announced his resignation on a late-night cable news show, the State Board of Education voted to table his $4 billion budget request for the coming fiscal year and questioned whether some educators’ due process rights are being violated by Walters’ refusal to include any action on teaching certificate suspensions, revocations or reinstatements on the agenda for Thursday’s meeting.
“As long as I’m here — and if you guys want to run for state superintendent, go on ahead — it will be my decision of what’s presented to the board,” Walters said. “That’s the way we’re going to do it.
“You guys can sue me. I don’t really care.”
As presented Thursday morning, the $4 billion budget proposal would have eliminated funding for Imagine Math, Imagine Reading, Ag in the Classroom and Great Expectations, a professional development program.
However, board members said they needed more time to review the document and wanted to see data from previous years to be able to compare any changes over time, including whether State Department of Education has historically stayed within its budget.
State statute requires that every state agency submit a budget request to the Office of Management and Enterprise Services by Oct. 1, which is next Wednesday.
When asked by board members, attorney Ryan Leonard could not find a penalty in state statute for missing that deadline.
One of three board members who voted to table the proposal, Mike Tinney told reporters after the meeting that he began to receive pieces of the budget proposal about a week prior to the meeting.
“We were helped by some people at OSDE, which I appreciate and that helped answer some of my questions, but that’s $4 billion and it’s the first time we’ve looked at anything like that,” he said. “We really want to be careful.”
Joining Tinney on the motion to table were Chris VanDenhende and Becky Carson. Walters and Zachary Archer voted against tabling, while board members Ryan Deatherage and Sarah Lepak were absent.
Meanwhile, during new business, VanDenhende indicated that he will seek a special session before the board’s next regularly scheduled meeting on Oct. 23 to address the backlog of disciplinary actions related to teacher certificates.
August’s meeting was canceled and the Sept. 3 meeting was limited to hiring a board attorney and establishing the hiring process for a new board secretary, which means the board has not voted on any certificate action in two months other than approving emergency certificate requests.
In addition to the cases that were already pending, Walters has publicly threatened the teaching certificates of several teachers for their comments or social media posts related to the Sept. 10 death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. OSDE announced Sept. 17 that it was investigating 70 teachers across 44 districts for possible disciplinary action based off complaints lodged via the agency’s Awareity platform.
“I find that (two-month gap) troubling. I made the comment before that we have people’s livelihoods in the balance,” VanDenhende said. “Maybe they’ve put it in the balance because of their actions, but if we need to change things, I feel we’ve got to address that somehow.
“We can’t wait until the October meeting.”
That lag time caused board members to ask Walters during the new business portion of the meeting about a status update of those pending cases and the due-process rights of the educators whose certificates have been in limbo for two months or more.
After initially balking at the request for a special meeting, Walters told the board that they were welcome to sue him or run for state superintendent if they objected to his decision.
“I control the agenda and it’s not going on the agenda as long as I’m here,” Walters said. “That is how we are going to proceed.”
lenzy.krehbiel-burton@tulsaworld.com
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Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton
Tulsa World Reporter
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