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Woodland Public Schools

Posted: Jan 29, 2021 3:35 PMUpdated: Jan 29, 2021 3:35 PM

Woodland Schools in Trouble With State, U.S. Dep. of Education

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Ty Loftis

Every two years, school districts are required to submit information to the United States Department of Education. Such information includes enrollment demographics, school expenditures, child nutrition programs and student retention. The school hasn't submitted a report since 2013 and of the 17,000 school districts across the nation, Woodland is the only school not to have responded.

 

Brad Clark with the Oklahoma State Department of Education, said at Thursday's State Education board meeting that the U.S. Department of Education has made multiple attempts to reach out to the school.

 

The United States Department of Education first reached out to the school on March 12th, 2018 and said in a letter that the school needed to show that they would be providing that information by March 28th. There was no response.

 

This continued for quite some time, even after the U.S. Department of Education sent a letter in early 2019 telling the district they are out of compliance and a failure to submit the information could result in a loss of federal funding. In October of that year, they called the school asking for Superintendent Todd Kimrey, only to be told he was out of the office for the week. That phone call was never returned. Around that time is when the Oklahoma State Department of Education got involved as well and got this e-mail from Kimrey.

 

Having yet to rectify this problem, the U.S. Department of Education put the Woodland School District at a “high risk status” last week, meaning they are at risk of losing federal funds and any grants they apply for will be under additional scrutiny. State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister was in favor of doing the same.

 

The Oklahoma State Board of Education voted unanimously to put the Woodland Public Schools certificate of accreditation on probation.


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