New policies and revisions to existing ones as required by the Oklahoma Legislature were discussed and approved at last week’s meeting of the Durant Board of Education.
The revisions include: Abuse, neglect and trafficking; criminal records searches; discrimination, harassment and retaliation; length of school year; open records; school board meetings; strong readers act; student behavior; student transfers, and suspension, dismissal and non-reemployment of teachers.
The policies are: Including students with disabilities in assessments; pregnant workers fairness act, and whistle blower protection for teacher and support employees.
“All the ones on the agenda here are legislative laws passed down by the legislature and what accreditation we will be looking for when they visit us in September and October,” said Durant Schools Superintendent Mark Moring.
Melanie Knight addressed the board and she asked for information as to what was changing. She said she filled out a form prior to the meeting to be able to speak in the public comments portion of the meeting. She said she had questions on many of them and wondered if she could be enlightened on what changes are occurring since she would not be able to ask afterwards.
Moring said the public comments are not for questions, only comments.
“So, if you have comments on the policies, you can comment on some of the polices that are listed, but the public (comments), it’s not for questions,” Moring said.
Knight said she has students in the district, so she feels like her questions are valid.
“I mean, I guess I just have a question,” Knight said.
Moring replied that every policy on the agenda is dictated by the legislature in accordance with state law.
“We’re adopting every policy that we have to according to the legislature,” Moring said. “It’s not any policies that we’ve picked and choosed, it’s according to state law. So, everything on our agenda right now is based off the legislative last February to May which we’re adopting those policies that they direct us to adopt.”
Board President Paul Buntz said it was to be in compliance with state law.
Knight said, “Okay, so after the meeting, I can do a public records request and get the answer to my questions as to what’s changing?”
“Yeah, after the meeting, all of the policies will be published on the website,” Moring replied. “It’s going to take a little bit of time for us to put them on the website.“ Knight asked about the time it will take to update the policies online because school was starting the following day.
“I’m not sure,” Moring said. “It depends on how busy we are. They will be updated today and we can give you a copy of them.”
In an email on Aug. 19, the school district said the policies were expected to be posted on the website that afternoon.
In other items discussed, Moring said he wanted to make a public reminder that for free and reduced lunches, parents need to fill out the forms.
“We do feed breakfast prek through eighth for free, but the announcement by the state superintendent about feeding universally, we’d love to, but it’s a knee-jerk reaction after budgets were already made,” Moring said. “I would encourage him to lobby the legislature next legislature session to get it done instead of waiting until after the legislative session to put out a comment past when it can be done.”
Moring spoke of a recent meeting for the entire district and he encouraged the teachers.
“My message also to the teachers was don’t get wrapped up in the constant headlines going on, this and that, what’s going on in Oklahoma City,” Moring said. “Be present with your students’ lives. People love to feed off negativity and drama. The magic still happens in the classroom with your kids. So, let’s put our blinders on and let’s work with those kids.”
He also said the district is looking at a demographic study to gauge growth in the town and that a couple of new housing additions will be constructed.
“We’re partnering with the city to get some housing information on the demographic study to see where we’re going to be in the next 10 years because I believe our last one was I think eight or nine years ago,” Moring said. “Since then, COVID has happened and its kind of adjusted some of the populations of the buildings and stuff. So, we want to see where we’re moving in town. It’s probably a good idea for a district of our size to do a demographic study every 10 years just to see where projected growth could be.”
Buntz said he saw a recent listing of the fastest-growing cities in Oklahoma and he recalled Durant was number four.
According to Moring, a multi-family unit is going to be constructed on Gerlach across the street from the high school and George Washington Elementary School.
“So, that’s pretty concerning to me,” Moring said. “As far as I know, the stoplight at First and Gerlach is still 2026 is what I’m hearing.”
Moring said the school district has a new app called the The Roar that is synced with the school’s website. It has all of the announcements, calendars and forms.
The school district has 31 new teachers, according to Moring.
”We have 12 at the high school, seven at the middle school, seven at Washington Irving and two at DIS, one at Northwest Heights, one at George Washington and one at Robert E. Lee,” Moring said.
Moring spoke of the district’s enrollment numbers.
“Our enrollment numbers in the district, not counting, the Choctaw pre-k, the Big Five pre-k, our enrollment numbers are 3,795,” Moring said. “When you add those two pre-k classes in, we get to 3,835 roughly because they’re going to have roughly 20 students per class.”
He said that last September, enrollment was 3,851 and that he thought the year prior to that was 3,850.
“Right now, my projection is we’re about 10 to 15 students below where we were at last year,” Moring said. “Two things I see, our pre-k enrollment numbers onsite right now, this is as of this morning, we’re sitting at 143 and we’re typically about 170 to 180 in pre-k, but we are up about 80 students at the high school over last year. Our senior class last year was 199 to 200 and the freshmen coming in, currently, they are our district’s largest class at 302. Every other class is below 300 except for our freshmen. So, our high school has seen in increase in enrollment of 80, but overall, we’re down about 15 and we’ve still got plenty of spots open in our pre-k.“
