After months of little movement, state Education Board votes on 17 teacher licensing actions

After months of taking heat from critics concerning the pace of suspension and/or revocation of teaching licenses, state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters and the Oklahoma Board of Education took action Thursday on 17 licensing issues, more than the board handled throughout all of 2023.

Until this month, the board under Walters ― who took office in January 2023 ― had handled 28 cases involving the suspension or revocation of teaching licenses, and 14 of those came during the board's January 2024 meeting. All told, Walters' board has taken action on the licenses of 42 people since he took office.

By comparison, his predecessor as state superintendent, Joy Hofmeister, and her board took action on the licenses of almost 200 people during her eight years in office.

One of Walters’ most vocal critics concerning the lack of speed in suspending teaching licenses is Sean Cummings, the vice mayor of The Village and a frequent speaker at State Board of Education meetings. But on Thursday, he praised the board.

“First things first ― I like what I just saw,” Cummings told the board. “I wish that had been happening for (the past) 18 months, but I like what I just saw.”

Walters promised there would be more action on license suspensions and revocations in the coming months.

“We are very much taking a serious look at these sexual predators in the classroom,” Walters said. “We took a big step today. You’re going to see it at the next board meeting, too. … You’re going to hear us continue to fight to keep every kid in Oklahoma safe.”

Nine teaching licenses suspended at OSDE meeting

The nine teachers Thursday who had their licenses suspended by an emergency order were Cody Barlow, John Boggs III, Stephen Gainor, Donald Holt, Tyler Patrick McGrew, Aron Wayne Pearcy, Floyd R. Robinson, Jaelah Marche Rose and Vernon Tyler Thetford.

Barlow, a former middle school principal and high school math teacher in Wewoka, faces charges of inappropriately touching two children. He has denied the charges in the criminal case, filed in April 2023. However, a civil lawsuit against him and the school district was settled for $1.95 million.

The Oklahoma City Public Schools district fired Gainor last May after placing him on leave the previous February. Gainor didn’t attend the special district board meeting at which his termination was considered. NonDoc reported Gainor was fired for allegedly putting a middle-school student in an “inappropriate hold.”

The board also accepted a hearing officer’s proposed findings of fact in the cases of three teachers whose licenses had been suspended by the board since December ― Kristen Andrews, Christen Covel and Hao Jiang. Covel was arrested in January 2022, when she worked at a Tulsa middle school, on complaints issued by Kansas law enforcement involving actions while she taught at a Wichita middle school in 2018 and 2019. In June 2023, she was sentenced in Kansas to two years and 10 months in prison.

Jiang is a former Western Heights Public Schools teacher who has not been charged with a crime, although a report circulated on social media late last year about the teacher's alleged efforts to meet with an underage boy. A news release from the Oklahoma State Department of Education last December referred to Jiang as a "pedophile" despite the lack of charges.

The board also referred five other cases to a hearing officer to revoke teaching certificates for Amanda Bristow, Toya Edwards-Benton, Essence Fields, Brandi Price and Travis Sloat. Bristow is a former teacher for Deer Creek Public Schools. Fields, a former Owasso teacher, is on trial for first-degree murder in Tulsa County and is in custody.

Ryan Walters takes shot at his predecessor concerning the pace of license suspensions

Walters said he was comfortable with suspending and revoking licenses even though some of the teachers involved have not been convicted ― or even charged ― with a crime. Walters used a question about the subject to criticize Hofmeister.

“We have taken a very different approach than my predecessor. We are not waiting on charges to be brought and adjudicated to pull licenses,” Walters said.

Without offering proof, Walters said the state Education Department now has “more investigators in the agency. Our directive has been clear ― if we find evidence of sexual misconduct by a teacher, if we find teachers breaking that teacher code of conduct, we are not going to wait on a conviction. We are absolutely going to move at that point in time."

Walters added: “You guys know there’s a process, right? They still have a process here, but we’re going to get them out of the classroom. We’re going to make sure those kids are protected. It’s an absolute shift in the way we’re going to deal with sexual predators in my administration from the previous one.”

Hofmeister has not commented on Walters' allegations concerning the pace of teacher license revocations.

Walters has offered no explanation for the slow pace of licensing actions during his time as superintendent. The agency did go several weeks without any attorneys on staff as the four he’d hired all left the agency during March, part of a mass exodus of at least 130 employees since Walters took office.

A new agency general counsel, Michael Beason, attended Thursday’s meeting and sat at the board table. The agency has yet to announce Beason’s hiring or respond to open records requests regarding his hiring contract. Beason replaces Bryan Cleveland, one of the lawyers who resigned from the agency in March, as general counsel. Cleveland now works for EdChoice, a nonprofit organization based in Indianapolis.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma State Board of Education votes on 17 teaching licenses