OKLAHOMA CITY — What would have been Oklahoma City’s first public Montessori school is now defunct.
The Oklahoma City Public Schools Board of Education voted unanimously Monday to rescind its charter contract with Oklahoma Public Montessori Initiative. The rescission is a mutual agreement with the charter school, which failed to complete the necessary steps to open as planned for the 2025-26 academic year.
The Oklahoma City board agreed to authorize the school’s founding contract in November 2023, despite Oklahoma City Public Schools administrators deeming the charter application as “insufficient in a number of areas.”
The charter school would have educated children in pre-K through fourth grade in far northwest Oklahoma City with the Montessori method of education, which is known for student-led, hands-on learning.
The board first considered the possibility of revoking its authorization of the charter school in June when it sent a notice of potential breach of contract. At the time, district staff and school board members expressed alarm at the lack of progress toward opening.
By that time, most of the school’s founding board members had left, according to a district report. The school had not secured a facility, and all of its expenditures were paused on May 2.
After the Oklahoma City board issued its warning, district administrators continued discussions with the school “about what’s best for both entities and what’s best for our students,” said Tony Childers, the district’s general counsel.
“As part of that conversation, the charter school agreed that, really, at this point it’d be best for us to just mutually rescind that agreement,” Childers said. “There wouldn’t be any action necessary in terms of the revocation. We just believed that would be best for the students, for us at this point to cut our ties.”
Nothing in the agreement forbids the school’s founders from reapplying for charter authorization in the future, Childers confirmed.
The head of the charter school’s board, Rico Smith, did not immediately return a request for comment after the rescission vote Monday evening. Bill Hickman, an attorney working with the school, declined to comment.
Although Oklahoma Public Montessori Initiative is no more, other public Montessori programs are opening in the city.
A different Montessori charter school and early childhood center is preparing to open its doors in the 2026-27 academic year. P3 Urban Montessori will enroll 90 students age 3 through kindergarten in the 73111 ZIP code in northeast Oklahoma City.
The Oklahoma City board rejected an application to authorize P3 in the same 2023 meeting that it approved Oklahoma Public Montessori Initiative.
P3’s founders, including Millwood Public Schools Superintendent Cecilia Robinson-Woods and her sister Rosalyn Robinson, later obtained a charter contract with the Statewide Charter School Board.
The Oklahoma City district also started offering Montessori-inspired education this school year.
After hearing community interest in a Montessori program, Horace Mann Pre-K Center opened two classrooms with that style of instruction, said Stephanie Hinton, the district’s executive director of early childhood.
Several Montessori private schools operate in the area around Horace Mann, located at Northwest 46th Street and North Western Avenue, and similar programs in Tulsa Public Schools have been popular, she said.
Two teachers at Horace Mann built up the program and completed specialized Montessori training over the summer, along with an assistant principal and the district’s early childhood coordinator, Hinton said.
“I have a feeling it won’t be our only Montessori-inspired program,” she said. “We’re just not quite sure where that expansion is going to lead to just yet.”
Republished in partnership with Oklahoma Voice under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Oklahoma Voice is a part of States Newsroom which is a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com. Follow Oklahoma Voice on Facebook and Twitter.
Nuria Martinez-Keel covers education for Oklahoma Voice and can be found at @NuriaMKeel on X (Twitter). She worked in newspapers for six years, more than four of which she spent at The Oklahoman covering education and courts. Nuria is an Oklahoma State University graduate.
