In Depth: OK State Board of Education holds meeting without State Supt. Ryan Walters

For the first time in a long time, if not ever, the Oklahoma State Board of Education held its own meeting without its chairman, State Superintendent Ryan Walters.

It was a rare legal move, but it’s one four of the board members said needed to happen so they could get proper legal guidance in their official duties moving forward.

“As far as we know, this is the first ever special meeting for the State Board of Education,” said Board of Education member Mike Tinney.

With a majority of four members, the Oklahoma State Board of Education was able to use an old state law from the 1970s to go over State Superintendent Ryan Walters to hold their own official and special meeting to address business the board members said Walters refused to put up for a vote during their regular meeting, which was supposed to be held last week but was canceled by Walters.

During Wednesday’s special board meeting, Tinney stated, “The statute says the board shall appoint their own attorney.”

In a statement made last week, the OSDE said the regular board meeting was cancelled because of concerns about the board not having the proper legal counsel in place to help guide them.

However, the main issue the board wanted to address was their lack of legal counsel and they said they’d planned to ask for the ability to vote to hire an attorney of their own. The main way the board would usually hire an attorney would have been through an item calling for a vote for the hiring of one on the regular meeting agenda.

By law, the State Board of Education must have its own attorney separate from the state superintendent so they can form legally sound opinions on their own instead of having to rely only on the superintendent’s word about the law.

“All the board asks for is an attorney to guide us appropriately to state laws, statutes and rules for the Department of Education,” said board member Chris Van Dehende. “I think Mr. Leonard is well capable of that.”

In the end, the board hired attorney Ryan Leonard who once ran for attorney general and who has recently been working for Governor Kevin Stitt.

Leonard will now accompany the board at its regular monthly meetings, replacing previous legal counsel some board members accused of being a personal attorney to Walters who constantly belittled board members and was combative.

Walters did not show up for the special board meeting on Wednesday and has previously demeaned the four board members publicly as “distractors” after they said they saw fully nude women on Walters’ office TV during a closed door executive session.

Walters has previously said he will work with anyone to reform education in Oklahoma.

“I can only speak for myself,” said Walters. “I am always willing to work with other folks to improve our kids’ education. I am an elected official.”

However, board members told FOX23 Walters doesn’t just demean them publicly because they’re appointees of Governor Stitt, but he also doesn’t communicate with them to allow them to properly conduct the business of the Oklahoma State Department of Education.

Van DeHende said, “Sadly, it’s been consistent since I’ve been on the board. We’ve had zero communication with the Department of Education except to determine if we’re going to attend the next board meeting.”

The board’s previous attorney resigned after it was revealed board members had reached out to the attorney general’s office about concerns they had regarding the legal counsel that was in place when they were appointed to the board of education.

Attorney Chad Kutmas worked for Walters when now former Bixby Superintendent Rob Miller sued Walters for defamation and Kutmas was also representing the Department of Education in its social studies lawsuit.

Board members told the attorney general’s office they wanted a new attorney for the Board of Education because they said Kutmas was constantly siding with Walters and they felt they were constantly fighting someone who was supposed to provide legal counsel for them, not for Walters.

When last month’s board meeting was abruptly cancelled and board members were still eager to hire their new attorney, multiple state agencies and officials stepped up to help conduct this special meeting.

They were publicly thanked by board members on Wednesday for their help to stop what they called the stonewalling of the state superintendent.

The board said they had help from Governor Stitt’s Office, specifically Stitt’s Secretary of Education Nellie Tayloe Sanders, the Office of Management and Enterprise Services (OMES), the Secretary of State’s Office who helped the board legally post the agenda, and the board also thanked Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s Office, though he did release a statement saying he didn’t like who the board chose as their attorney.

Attorney General Drummond’s full statement about the board’s choice of Ryan Leonard as their attorney is below:

“Unfortunately for Oklahoma students and their families, our schools have gone from bad to worse since Gov. Stitt first appointed Ryan Walters as Secretary of Education. We have gone from one scandal to the next, and now we rank 50th in education.

The latest political drama is yet another squabble between Gov. Stitt’s hand-picked state Superintendent of Public Instruction and his hand-picked State Board of Education members. It seems neither side can agree on which attorney is best to advise them as they do further damage to Oklahoma’s public schools.

The board’s decision to hire a politically connected attorney with little to no experience advising a state board is yet another example of the dysfunction that has plagued public education since Gov. Stitt first appointed Ryan Walters. While Mr. Leonard may be a talented plaintiff’s attorney and has counseled the Governor through various legal battles against Oklahoma’s Native American tribes, he is woefully inadequate to serve as general counsel to the State Board of Education."

Currently, Superintendent Walters remains under investigation for what board members said was full frontal nudity on his TV last July.

According to Speaker of the House Kyle Hilbert, the accusations occurred because an old Jackie Chan movie with multiple scenes of nude women accidentally played on the superintendent’s office TV.

However, with little communication from Superintendent Walters to the board and this issue remaining in the hands of Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna, it’s unclear if September’s regularly scheduled board meeting will take place as planned or if it will also be cancelled.