Yesterday afternoon, The US Department of Education dropped a three-hour-long "National Safe School Reopening Summit" to help guide school districts on how to reopen following a life-altering pandemic that changed our way of life, killed over 500,000 Americans, and sickened and hospitalized millions and millions more.
One Oklahoma school district participating in the summit was Tulsa Public Schools. As a large district where 83% of its students are "economically disadvantaged," and nearly 75% part of a minority group, their superintendent Dr. Deborah Gist joined a "Lessons from the Field" panel that focused on the liberally-driven topic of "Addressing the Academic, Social, and Emotional Needs of Students with a Focus on Equity."
Normally, when an Oklahoma school district receives attention and recognition on the national stage, you'd assume our image-conscious Governor and his propaganda team would be quick to promote and praise the district, and talk about the good work being done by Oklahomans.
Well, not this time.
Check out the tweet that Stitt's Chief Communications Bro – a former sports anchor named Charlie Hannema – fired off in response to a tweet about it:
Boy, give this Charlie Hannema credit. Not only is he a decent troll, but he's also one hell of an ass-kisser! When Stitt saw that response, I bet he got so excited that he gave Charlie a special cut of meat for Eat Meat Week!
As you probably know, Kevin Stitt – an enemy of public education who goes out of his way to help scammy Epic Charter Schools screw legitimate schools out of funding – has put the Tulsa School District on his stitt-list. Probably because the district has a bunch of poor kids, it's almost like he's rooting for them to fail just so he can talk trash and pander to right-wing Oklahomans. Earlier this year, he called out the school district directly during his State of the State address for not opening up sooner and infecting more people with the Coronavirus. In fact, his criticism of the district was so persistent that Superintendent Gist wrote a lengthy open letter defending her district, and calling out the Governor for being an unprofessional "bully."
For what it's worth, I don't think Stitt's poll-driven criticism of an embattled-school district that didn't rush to reopen during the height of a pandemic and help spread the Coronavirus to more people makes Kevin Stitt a bully. Perhaps a better lede would be "Our governor is an idiot" or "our governor is a rube" or "our governor is a moron."
Anyway, if you're one of those people that like boring stuff like education policy, you can watch video of the summit below. Stay with The Lost Ogle. We'll keep you advised.
