OKCPS preps school start with teacher recruitment, security plans

Last Updated on July 27, 2022, 4:25 PM | Published: July 27, 2022

OKLAHOMA CITY (Free Press) — With only two weeks to go before the start of school, Oklahoma City Public Schools is on track to achieve its teacher retention and recruitment goals reported district officials Tuesday.

In a press conference, Supt. Sean McDaniel reported that the district has achieved 94.8 % of teacher staffing needs and is still actively recruiting.

“So while we feel good about that, just keep the volume in mind 5% of 2600 is still a lot of teachers that we have to find,” said McDaniel.

Security chief introduced

Wayland Cubit, the new OKCPS director of security, was introduced at the news conference and fielded a number of questions about meeting the security needs of students and staff of the district.

Cubit recently retired from the Oklahoma City Police Department and took the role with OKCPS after having spent years specializing in police-community relations and educating the community on how to stay safe.

He said that he has found that the district already has a “security mindset” and are eager to provide a safe environment for students, staff, and anyone else in the school environment.

“I love the fact that everybody right now is pulling at my coattails to get me to their individual sites to do assessments of their building and to talk about what concerns they have,” said Cubit.

Securing schools

Drills and making sure that staff and students know how to stay safe in a school environment is a priority, he said.

He said that the purpose of drills, especially in the light of what happened at Uvalde, Texas, is to make sure everyone is prepared and confident in their ability to handle a difficult situation. But, the purpose was not to make students “paranoid” so that they are scared to be in school.

Background checks on people who are supposed to be in school working with kids and secure doors of each building continue to be important.

And, they will continue to have Oklahoma County deputies and Oklahoma City Police Officers who are SROs.

But, to our question about how much SROs will be used for discipline Cubit said, “the officers and both the staff will be reinforced with the information that the SRO is not there for discipline.”

In a response to a later question, McDaniel said that building principals, assistant principals, and teachers would be trained and have the expectation about how to avoid using SROs for discipline purposes.

Deputy Superintendent Jason Brown as called on to respond to our question about SRO overuse as well.

“I think that stems from when there’s a lack of resources in the building,” said Brown.
“If you don’t have anyone else to call, you think, oh, okay, I need an SRO down here, I have a situation. And so what we’ve done to combat that is make sure that teachers feel supported and make sure that we have the resources.”

Brown said that the effort is to make sure that there are enough resources so that teachers do not feel stranded. He said that one of the features of Pathways to Greatness was that there would be an assistant principal in each building.

Also, they will have administrative interns in buildings that will provide support as well.

Enrollment

He also reported that their overall projected enrollment is 31,200 and the district has already enrolled 72% of that number. Last year at this same point before the start of school the district had enrolled 52% of the projected enrollment. Yearly projected enrollments are derived from information about which students are likely to come back from the year before, demographics studies, and other sources.

He encouraged parents and guardians to get students enrolled before the first day of school to allow principals to correctly anticipate how many they should prepare to have in their buildings and to keep there from being any lag in services.

“You’ve got to get enrolled,” McDaniel said directed at anyone who is responsible for enrolling students. “enrollment in that confirmation, launches a whole bunch of other things: it gets your schedule, gets your teacher, you’re able to get a parent portal, a lot of things happen after enrollment. And, until you get enrolled, you can’t do these things.”

McDaniel encouraged online enrollment at okcps.org or to go to your school if online enrollment is a problem.

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