Tulsa school board member launches campaign for state superintendent
TULSA — Jerry Griffin of the Tulsa school board has joined John Cox, April Grace, Jena Nelson and Ryan Walters in the race to be Oklahoma’s next state superintendent.
Griffin, a retiree who previously worked in law enforcement at the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office and the Tulsa Police Department, registered a candidate committee with the Oklahoma Ethics Commission on Tuesday.
The Republican was elected to the District 6 seat on the Tulsa Public Schools Board of Education in June 2020.
“I have solutions that will significantly improve the education system in Oklahoma,” Griffin said in a written press announcement. “Examples are school vouchers, programs to serve Hispanic parents and students, programs to improve students’ understanding of citizenship, increased funding for (kindergarten) through 3rd grade, a challenge to the United States Supreme Court’s prohibition of prayer in school, and other programs that will serve all the students of Oklahoma.”
State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister is term-limited and in the fall announced that she was changing her party registration to launch a bid for governor.
Candidate filing for 2022 elections for federal, state, legislative, judicial and county offices will be April 13-15.
Cox, the Peggs Public Schools superintendent, and Grace, the Shawnee Public Schools superintendent, are registered Republicans, though Cox previously ran as a Democrat for the same office and lost to Hofmeister, then a Republican, in 2014 and 2018.
Nelson, the only Democrat in the race thus far, teaches English composition and academic enhancement classes at Deer Creek Middle School in Edmond and was the 2020 Oklahoma Teacher of the Year.
Walters is Gov. Kevin Stitt’s appointed secretary of education and works as chief executive officer at Every Kid Counts Oklahoma, an education reform outfit. He previously taught history at McAlester High School, where he was a finalist in the 2016 Oklahoma State Teacher of the Year contest.