State Superintendent Ryan Walters Visits Tulsa Schools, Praises District For Improvements

State Superintendent Ryan Walters was in Tulsa Tuesday, touring some Tulsa Public Schools and looking at their tutoring programs.

Walters says Tulsa is an example of how to do it right when it comes to working on ensuring student success in the classroom.

Walters says he’s proud of the significant improvements TPS has made in the past year and how the district has prepared the students for state testing.

He says one example is moving 12 schools off the “F” list on their state report cards.

"I cannot say enough good things about a large district of this size, the logistical effort to pull these programs off in a short time,” said Walters. “It is great for Tulsa, but it's also great for the state of Oklahoma to have the biggest school district have this kind of improvement."

TPS Superintendent Dr. Ebony Johnson says she’s been working closely with her team to make sure they have what they need to see improvement.

"Looking at all of our academic outcomes knowing that we were not where we needed to be and already putting a footprint in place to actually see change,” said Johnson. “Looking at our curriculum, making sure that we are utilizing our curriculum with fidelity, ensuring that the data that we were looking at actually drove some of the decisions that we needed to make."

She says there is still a lot of work to do this spring and next school year to get students moving in the right direction.

"I'm just appreciative of a team who's embraced the changes that we have put in place,” said Johnson. “We moved aggressively and urgently around some of our changes, and these changes are not easy.”

Walters says the district has been hitting all the marks it needs to and hopes other districts will see TPS as an example of how to turn things around.

"One of the things we continue to look at is that we want to move the schools off of that “F” list,” said Walters. “We want to move the rest of them. We want to look at making sure we see student growth and performance hitting the metrics that we've laid out of above 50 percent."

State testing started Monday for 3rd graders and will start Thursday for 4th through 8th grades.