SCHOOL CHOICE
Educating about EDUCATION AS THE NEW SCHOOL YEAR APPROACHES, WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EDUCATION IN TULSA? BY KRISTI EATON
M
ontessori. School choice. Charter. Magnet. When it comes to education, many terms are used on a regular basis. But they don’t need to be scary or confusing. According to Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister, who raised her four children in Tulsa and currently lives here with her husband, family engagement is a critical element of students’ classroom success. Here, we highlight some of the particulars around education in Tulsa and in Oklahoma.
Hofmeister says the term school choice is an important one. “School choice is a term that, I think, is very important to every mom and dad who has a child enrolled in school,” she says. “It ensures they have input into how their student is going to learn in a setting and method that is best for them.” Th is can mean, for example, choosing from a variety of schools in a district that might have different educational offerings. It can refer to different types of learning, she says, from a traditional classroom experience to virtual learning or a hybrid of the two. At the high school level, it might mean concurrent enrollment in a district school and in career tech, or even concurrent enrollment in higher education, allowing a student to earn college credit. “All of these types of school choice opportunities exist within the public-school setting in Oklahoma,” Hofmeister says. Of course, families may also choose a private school and pay tuition. Many of Oklahoma’s public districts, including Tulsa, she notes, have charter schools in their portfolio of choice. “They serve either a particular focus for student learning or a concentrated need that would be of interest for students — whether that be the arts or engineering and science,” she says. Oklahoma law states a charter school is a public school established by contract with a board of education of a school district, an area vocationaltechnical school district, a higher education institution, a federally recognized tribe, or the State Board of Education, pursuant to the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act. Hofmeister adds that charter schools might offer a special curriculum but are not required to do so. Tulsa Public Schools has six authorized charter schools: Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences, KIPP Tulsa, Tulsa Honor Academy, Collegiate Hall, College Bound Academy and Tulsa Legacy. “We partner with them, but they have their own separate enrollment process and families apply directly to access those schools, if that’s what they are interested in,” says Jorge Robles, chief operations officer for TPS. Alternative schools are another choice for students and their families. Within TPS, alternative schools are offered to students who are in unique circumstances that might require credit recovery or a different type of classroom instruction. Those schools include Tulsa Learning Academy, Phoenix Rising, Street School, Tulsa Tech Career Academy, TRAICE Academy Middle School and High School, and Tulsa Met Junior High and High School.
TulsaPeople.com
39
