Parents meet to discuss North Highland’s future
Angela Dyer wasn’t ready to give up on North Highland Elementary School just yet.
The North Highland parent wanted to find out more about the struggling school, which faced closure as recently as June 26 before Oklahoma City Public Schools Superintendent Aurora Lora changed her mind.
“I heard that the school was closing and then I heard it wasn’t closing,” Dyer said during a community meeting Monday night at the school. “My kids go here. I wanted to find out if there were principals, if it was still going to remain open.”
Dyer was among 60 or so people who gathered inside the school’s new gymnasium to get involved. In addition to parents, teachers, former students and volunteers from surrounding churches, organizations and businesses attended the meeting.
“We need you to be here,” said Debra Roberts, a volunteer at Martin Luther King Elementary School, who is leading similar efforts at North Highland. “We so much appreciate you being here, and we really look forward to you doing what you do to help our children in this community to grow and prosper.”
While the school district has yet to name North Highland’s new principal and several teaching vacancies still remain, officials have hired a new assistant principal, a counselor and a social worker and have filled three front office positions.
One of those new hires — Assistant Principal Anjanette Wallace-Sela — assured the crowd that things were going to be different and vowed to improve communication with parents.
“It’s my job to make sure that our teachers are doing what they need to do to communicate with you because I know that when you give us the support that we need, we can be more successful in the classroom,” said Wallace-Sela who comes to North Highland from nearby Britton Elementary School.
Dyer, for one, bought into the message of hope being delivered at the meeting.
“I’m excited about the enthusiasm of the new administrators,” she said. “That can be contagious.”
Monday, meanwhile, marked the first day back for district principals, with teachers scheduled to report July 26. Students return to school Aug. 1.
The district has decided on a new principal and is actively working to fill nine remaining teaching positions at North Highland, said Communications Director Beth Harrison.
“We are now in the process of handling a few certification and contract details for the individual selected and hope to make an official announcement very soon,” Harrison said.
Lora came under fire for asking the school board to consider closing North Highland and moving nearly 400 students to another school without community input and then backtracking after the plan was leaked.
At the time of the leak, Lora said closing the school was her only option because there was no office staff, a handful of teachers and no principal in place. That was June 21. Five days later, Lora told a school board meeting filled with North Highland backers that closure was a “contingency plan” in the event she couldn’t find a principal or enough teachers to staff the school.
That didn’t sit well with many some on the board and in the audience, who took the superintendent to task for the way she handled the situation.