OKC district nears end of summer of change
Oklahoma City Public Schools is hurtling toward the finish line of one of the most transformational summers in a generation.
Fifteen schools shut down, most of which have incoming l easing tenants. Seventeen other schools are preparing for a year with new faculty, new buildings, new curricula or new grades of students.
Thousands of the dist ri ct's employees gathered Tuesday morning at the Cox Convention Center to celebrate the coming school year with performers and speakers, including district Teacher of the Year Christina Kirk.
Reshuffling across the district caused Kirk to pack up her classroom at Rogers Middle School and move t o Star Spencer Mid- High School. Despite t he major undertaking, she encouraged her colleagues to embrace the school consolidation plan,
referred to as Pathway to Greatness.
“This is our moment to embrace change with confidence ,” Kirk said in her address .“This is our moment to walk in our collective greatness. Good is no longer good enough. Greatness is our new norm.”
When classes begin Aug. 12, the district will look striking ly different than it did when summer break started in May. Since then, district reorganizing has moved thousands of students to new schools.
“Suddenly, t heir bus route changes, their school changes, their teacher changes, their cafeteria that they're used to going to,” Superintendent Sean McDaniel said. “Everything changes for
them over the summer.”
McDaniel spoke with reporter son Monday during a tour of F.D. Moon Middle School, one of the sites that transformed over the past three months.
Formerly an elementary school, F. D. Moon now will serve students from fifth through eighth grade. KIPP Reach College Preparatory, a charter middle school, will share the building at 1900 NE 13.
Some schools have moved into entirely new facilities. Belle Isle Enterprise Middle School converted West Nichols Hills Elementary, 8400 Greystone, into a fifth and sixth grade center. The application school will teach seventh and eighth grade in its original location at 5904 N Villa.
Principal Lynne Zahn said she had to be available at all times over the summer to meet with movers and oversee renovations. She also added 19 new staff members
as Belle Isle took on fifth grade classes, added electives and filled vacancies.
“It has taken a lot of time, a lot of manpower, but I feel like we' re in really good shape,” Zahn said .“I cannot believe how much progress has been made. I can not believe how close everything is to being done. I never thought it would be possible.”
Schools are readying their interiors while construction is still underway on athletic fields, McDaniel said. Many Oklahoma City schools are still hiring for one or two teaching positions, amounting to about 95 openings across t he district.
Administrators still anticipate challenges as school begins. Thousands of families will see their routines upended. Many children will start school in an unfamiliar environment.
Yet, McDaniel said
even reaching this point seemed insurmountable a year ago.
“No one believed that we could do it,” he said during his address to district staff. “I had the same number of people tell me, `You're not even going to be here a year from now.'”
Though the first day of school approaches, administrators are already looking forward to winter break to evaluate the first full semester after restructuring, McDaniel said.
The district will track certain indicators of success over the first semester, con ti nuing through the next three years. Half of these indicators can be measured with data, such as daily attendance and academic achievement. The other half, McDaniel described as the “happiness factor,” a gauge of student and staff morale.
After closing multiple
schools, the district can concentrate more resources on academics in the facilities that are left, McDaniel said. More funds also will funnel toward support of students' mental health and emotional well-being, an initiative known as EmbraceOKC.
“We don' t hope for, we don't have our fingers crossed, we expect to see the needle move specifically with reading and math scores because of the investments that we've made with the various teachers and counselors and EmbraceOKC,” McDaniel said. “Really addressing the fundamental needs that our kids come to us with. When we address those things, those other needles will begin to move.”
The district complemented its large-scale re organization with its first rebrand in nearly 25 years. A new logo depicts
the state bird, a scissortail fly catcher, with wings resembling pages of a book. The district also adopted the slogan “Believe.”
The scissor tail flycatch er has become a symbol of revitalization in Oklahoma City, McDaniel said. New structures built during recent city growth have born the bird' s name or likeness, such as Skydance Bridge and the coming Scissortail Park.
The Oklahoma City school district should be in lockstep with that renaissance, McDaniel said.
“To see the change we desire, we also have to think of ourselves differently and a new brand will help us do that,” district Chief of Communications Beth Harrison said in a statement .“It' s the mental pivot that we need and also part of what our community needs to truly believe that it's a new day for OKCPS.”