EDUCATION
John Neal
Photo, Adobe Images
Threatens New Superintendent’s Appointment
Two Tulsa Public School board members have filed a lawsuit charging inappropriate and unlawful conduct by a majority of the board. Among the actions the suit objects to is the appointment of Ebony Johnson to the TPS superintendent position. The board voted 5-2 in favor of the appointment in a meeting on Dec. 11, 2023.
Board members Jennettie Marshall and E’Lena Ashley filed the lawsuit in the State District Court of Tulsa County on Jan. 18. The suit claims that the majority of board members violated the Oklahoma Open Meeting Act, circumvented Board Policy, and manipulated board proceedings.
The lawsuit seeks to invalidate Johnson’s appointment and start a national search for a new superintendent of TPS.
The board members were joined by Aaron Griffin as plaintiffs. They directed the suit against TPS Board President Stacey Woolley and other board members, Superintendent Johnson and former TPS Superintendent Deborah Gist. Board member Jerry Griffith is not named as a plaintiff or defendant in the legal action. The suit also seeks to invalidate Gist’s Separation Agreement and preclude Johnson from holding the superintendent position until a national search to fill the position is completed.
The lawsuit names the TPS district as an additional defendant. Attorney Marie Mercedes Seidler filed the action on behalf of “Legal Overreach for Parents’ School Rights.”
The lawsuit comes as Johnson is enmeshed in a battle with the Oklahoma State Board of Education (OSBE) to avoid a state takeover of Tulsa Public Schools. The State Board’s Superintendent for Public Instruction Ryan Walters has threatened such action because of what he calls Tulsa’s “failing schools.”
Allegations and deepening rift
In their court petition, the plaintiffs seek a declaratory action and injunctive relief by the court. They set forth a long list of alleged facts that constitute the context for the legal action. Among them are the “academic crisis and administrative mismanagement” of the Tulsa Public Schools district. As factual evidence for this context, Marshall and Ashley cite an ongoing “controversial forensic audit” by the State Auditor. In the filing, the two board members acknowledged they initiated the audit by making the audit request to Gov. Kevin Stitt.
The lawsuit threatens to deepen a long-standing rift among school board members, sometimes involving the school administration. In the July 1, 2022, letter to Stitt requesting the audit, Marshall and Ashley wrote, “There are significant concerns and substantiating evidence that process and state contract laws may have been violated, and this is not a one-time pattern of operation.”
The two board members also walked-out of a school board meeting that same month, criticizing then-Superintendent Deborah Gist and President Woolley for a lack of financial transparency. For weeks in early 2023, the two joined forces to block the appointment to fill a vacancy for a district board seat. Marshall told The Oklahoma Eagle in a March 2023 interview that the process was “tainted with shifting directions, unclear milestones and out of quorum meetings.”
A common theme in the lawsuit filing is that the “Majority Members” of the Tulsa School Board sought to politicize the various decisions of the board through a “backroom” or “closeted strategy” to maintain their political power over the board. While other board members are named defendants, the petition takes particular aim at TPS School Board President Woolley and former Superintendent Deborah Gist.
The lawsuit contends Woolley and Gist initiated “a series of backroom strategy discussions” to secure Gist’s Separation Agreement and appointment of Ebony Johnson as interim superintendent on August 23, 2023. However, both board members Ashely and Marshall voted for the Gist Separation Agreement and the interim appointment of Johnson. In the court filing, these board members state they “felt that exigencies left them no option…”. Subsequently, both board members voted against Johnson’s permanent appointment, citing process concerns.
Arguments and relief sought
The plaintiffs assert for multiple pages in the 40-page petition that the deliberations and actions involving these events prove the “Defendants Intentionally Violated the Open Meeting Act.” Further, the lawsuit alleges that the Board Policy was violated and that the “Defendants Abused their Discretion and Such Action was Arbitrary and Capricious.”
The Oklahoma Eagle has not received any statements from the defendants, and no court filing has been made in their defense as of the deadline for this article’s publication.
The filing seeks Declaratory Orders by the Court and Preliminary and Permanent Injunctive Relief. The Oklahoma Eagle-excerpting, paraphrasing, and summarizing- describes the relief sought as:
- Invalidate the Deborah Gist Separation Agreement
- Invalidate the interim and permanent appointment of Ebony Johson as TPS superintendent
- Declare that the defendants abused board discretion
- Void specific other personnel changes made by the superintendent and the board
- Require a national search for a superintendent by Board Policy
- Consider ordering financial restitution and requesting a criminal investigation into violation of the Oklahoma Open Meeting Act
At a meeting open to the public this month, Johnson seemed to shrug off the lawsuit. “Yeah, it’s a little disheartening because it sends a very divisive message to our constituencies,” she said. “It sends a wave of confusion as well to people saying, well, wait a minute; I thought that we were trying to all row in the same direction.”
