Talent drain at Oklahoma State Department of Education: More than 130 staffers have left

At least 65 people have left their jobs with the Oklahoma State Department of Education since July, according to resignation letters and termination forms obtained by The Oklahoman. That raises the total number of employees who have departed the agency since state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters took office to more than 130.

The Oklahoman and numerous other media outlets have filed multiple requests with the agency for copies of the resignation letters. However, despite the letters being subject to release under the Oklahoma Open Records Act, those requests have gone unanswered. The newspaper obtained the documents from another source.

On Wednesday afternoon, The Oklahoman sent agency spokesman Dan Isett a list of specific questions about the number of employees leaving the agency and about the reasons why so many people have left -- especially executive-level employees, many of whom were brought in by Walters. The newspaper also asked about the agency's ability to perform its core tasks, given the large number of employee departures, as well as about specific meetings and policy changes mentioned in some of the resignation and retirement letters.

Isett's response: "The Oklahoman is fake news ... (T)hey continue to lie about SDE and throw a fit that Supt. Walters has brought accountability to a dumpster fire of an agency led by their darling Democrat Joy Hofmeister." Hofmeister was Walters' predecessor as state superintendent. Elected to that office as a Republican, Hofmeister switched to the Democratic party before making an unsuccessful run for governor in 2022.

Since Walters took office in January 2023, the agency has seen a steady exodus of talent and institutional knowledge. Oklahoma Voice reported in September that from the time Walters took office in January 2023 until early August, 86 people left the agency. The 130-plus number of employees leaving accounts for the overlap between that time period and the time period looked at by The Oklahoman.

The number of people hired by the agency during that time hasn’t come close to matching the rate of departures. About 33 people had been hired under Walters as of the September, Oklahoma Voice reported. As of Tuesday, only seven openings were posted on the agency’s job board.

Some high-profile departures were previously reported, including those of the general counsel and the rest of the agency’s legal staff, the chief of staff, the executive director of accreditation and the program manager for grant development and compliance.

But other key personnel also have stepped down, including the manager for federal programs, the executive director of the school personnel records division, the chief financial officer, the deputy director of human resources, the program director for family and community engagement and the procurement manager, among others. All told, at least 23 people with “director” or “manager” titles or executive roles have departed since July. Some had not joined the agency until after Walters took over.

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The departures were throughout the agency, judging from the resignation letters or termination notices with titles listed. The agency’s office of school support has lost at least seven employees. The agency’s SoonerStart program – an early intervention program designed to meet the needs of families with infants or toddlers – lost at least four employees. The early childhood division at least three people, as did the comptroller’s office, which handles finances.

All four people in the agency’s legal department have left since the beginning of March, although there were no resignation letters or termination notices for two junior attorneys. Walters’ first communications director, Justin Holcomb, has left, as has the assistant to Isett.

How have all the departures affected how the agency operates?

There’s little doubt the departures have resulted in slower performance by the agency. Federal funding which passes through the agency to individual school districts is usually distributed by the fall, but some districts didn’t see that money until early in the new year.

The state teacher-of-the-year contest finalists usually are introduced in October; this school year, it took until March. Open-records requests are handled slowly, or not at all. Walters received Freedom of Information Oklahoma’s “Black Hole Award” earlier this year, in part due to the lack of timely response to records requests.

The few former employees who have spoken with reporters described an agency in which leaders often are distant and unavailable. Pamela Smith-Gordon, the program manager for grant development and compliance, said in her resignation letter to Walters that “the lack of leadership and availability within our own OSDE is impossible to ignore.”

“Superintendent Walters, your absence, and the refusal to meet with your staff sends a concerning message that we may not hold value in your eyes,” Smith-Gordon wrote. “I hope that this can be attributed to inexperience rather than a personal political agenda as this would not be in the best interest of Oklahoma’s children, teachers and dedicated OSDE employees.”

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The vast majority of resignation or retirement letters weren’t addressed to Walters or didn’t mention him specifically. That said, a handful expressed issues with the direction of the agency since he took over. Some were only one sentence long, with scribbled initials at the bottom, as if written in haste.

The letters written by executive-level employees who resigned described their experience in warmer terms. Former agency Chief of Staff Jenna Thomas, whose final day of employment there was last Friday, called her time at the agency “incredibly fulfilling.” Former General Counsel Bryan Cleveland told Walters that “I wish you all the best in continuing the fight for Oklahoma’s kids.” Both said they were leaving for family reasons and that they had accepted other employment.

Former Deputy Counsel Andy Ferguson didn’t provide a reason for his resignation but said his time at the agency “was an experience that I will never forget.”

Former Chief Financial Officer Mathangi Shankar, who had worked at the agency for 13 years, said, “I have decided it is time for me to move on to the next challenge.” The language of another longtime employee, Sonia Johnson – who had served as the program director for family and community engagement – was similar. After 12 years at the agency, she said, “I feel that the time has come for me to pursue a new challenge.”

Two people who left didn't hold back in departure letters

Others who stepped down wrote forceful letters, especially two people – Joyce Rock and Linda Reid – who worked in the agency’s office of school support. The office has support specialists who work with at-risk schools across the state, with many of them living outside Oklahoma City and working with schools in the region of the state in which they live.

Rock and Reid described a contentious meeting on Oct. 30 and led by Theresa Wilson, the agency’s director of school support; David Chissoe, its program director of student support; and Todd Loftin, its executive director for special education services.

Rock said at the meeting, the agency’s school support specialists found out “the working conditions and job descriptions for School Support Specialists were changed drastically.”

“I left this meeting with no doubts that I was no longer a valued team member at OSDE and went to the (Teacher Retirement System) office to begin the retirement process,” Rock wrote. Rock’s final day at the agency was Feb. 5.

Reid, the 2007 Oklahoma teacher of the year, left the agency on March 7. In her resignation letter, she noted that “in recent months the work environment has become increasingly unstable.”

She said at the Oct. 30 meeting, “all support specialists – each of whom has a master’s degree or greater and multiple years education leadership experience – were told their roles would change drastically and immediately. Since that day, there is a pervasive feeling of a lack of respect and trust that makes remaining impossible.”

Reid said school support specialists were “intentionally hired from diverse geographic regions and charged with supporting schools with (an improvement) designation – predominantly those near our region, we were informed we were being assigned to physically ‘office’ daily in an arbitrary local school – without consulting that school – and that all our work must occur there, on the road at another school site, or within the physical OSDE. The number of sites we were assigned expanded dramatically – and the sites assigned to each of us has changed repeatedly. We have, consequently, lost six specialists since that date.”

The final straw for Reid came on March 1, when she said the remaining school support specialists were told “that beginning immediately each of us would substitute in various capacities within the Tulsa Public School system two days each week – non-negotiable, requiring two nights in hotels each work week, regardless of the loss of support to our assigned schools…I find it impossible to serve my schools effectively under current leadership dictates.”

The Oklahoman reported last month that 16 agency employees were working as substitutes in the Tulsa Public Schools district. One of those employees was Wilson. The employees are part of a project launched by Walters to help Tulsa school officials temporarily fill several gaps at the district's schools. The employees from the agency are teaching at schools across the Tulsa district. District officials said they had about three weeks to prepare for the group, including training and background checks.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma State Department of Education has lost 130 staffers