OKC Public Schools sees increased enrollment over last year

Last Updated on September 19, 2022, 8:21 PM | Published: September 19, 2022

OKLAHOMA CITY (Free Press) — Oklahoma City Public Schools is 98.6% staffed and has enrollment up over last year at this time according to OKCPS Superintendent Sean McDaniel.

McDaniel included that information in his superintendent’s report during the OKCPS Board of Education meeting Monday.

Even with that impressive percentage, the scale of the state’s biggest traditional school district means that the district still has 45 teaching positions across all grades and disciplines that still need to be filled.

The actual count McDaniel gave for current student enrollment in the district is 33,311 students, up over last year’s count at this time by “well beyond 2,000.”

Revamping charter contracts

The Board continues to rework all of its contracts with charter schools, most significantly lowering the administrative fee charged to the schools from 3% to 1%. Charter authorizers are allowed to charge the fee and some other fees to cover costs to the district of having the charter in district buildings and staff to keep services flowing between the district and the schools.

However, the Board has decided to make it easier for charters in district buildings by taking on some of the large improvements to the district-owned buildings and including them in the upcoming proposed bond.

“We want to be better partners with our charters in the future,” said McDaniel at a previous Board meeting.

Several charters have already approved changes to their agreements with the district with several more to go.

At Monday’s meeting, the Board voted to approve the addendum to the John Rex Charter Elementary School downtown to change the administrative fee from 3% to 1%.

The modern building that John Rex School is in was built with MAPS money and then given to the district.

Band uniforms

A somewhat unexpected discussion circulated among Board members about whether all of the district’s marching bands have actual band uniforms of some sort.

The discussion was prompted by the Board’s consideration of a request to buy matching polo shirts for the newly-formed marching band at Classen SAS at Northeast.

Board Chair Paula Lewis commented during consideration of the consent agenda on the Classen request that all of the marching bands in the district should have some sort of uniform for the sake of pride in the various bands across the district.

Board member Lori Bowman spoke in agreement with Lewis that if students are going to put in the time and effort, the district should be providing uniforms.

McDaniel agreed and said that some of the programs had not been in the “rotation” for regularly updating their uniforms the same way that football teams do.

Further discussion yielded agreement among Board members and arts staff leadership that all of the bands will be included in regular requests for new uniforms and that it should not simply be on the shoulders of a band teacher to know how and when to make the request.

Policy changes proposed

Two policy change documents were presented to the Board for information only and will be voted on at a future date.

They are on Wellness and Graduation requirements. The documents are below with proposed changes highlighted.

I-20-GRADUATION-REQUIREMENTS-revised-9-19-22

C-26-Wellness-Policy-revised-9-15-22

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