After hours of witness testimony and pages of evidence, a struggling Oklahoma City charter school still has not convinced a state board that it should be allowed to stay open for another year.
The Statewide Charter School Board on Monday made the rare vote to terminate the founding charter contract for Proud To Partner Leadership Academy. The board first voted 9-1 to declare there is “clear and convincing evidence” the school violated that contract before agreeing unanimously to proceed toward canceling it.
Board members made their decision after a lengthy and uncommon termination hearing that began April 29 and continued on Monday. A few more procedural steps remain before the school’s charter contract could be canceled officially, after which point its state funding would be cut off.
If the southwest Oklahoma City high school closes, its 100 students will have to return to their home districts or find another educational option for the next academic year.
The only way to avoid a shutdown is if the school makes “significant changes structurally” in the coming days, said Brian Shellem, who leads the statewide board. He said the board would “extend a hand” to the school and its attorneys to explore options.
Proud To Partner’s superintendent, Dawn Bowles, said the school’s leaders will wait to hear from the state board about what alternatives are available. In the meantime, students are “in limbo of knowing where they will actually be next year,” she said.
“We are still devoted and committed to doing what’s best on behalf of the families that we serve,” Bowles said after the vote.
Throughout the termination hearing, state officials described Proud to Partner, known as PTPLA, as a school in financial and operational disarray since it opened in July 2024.
Attorneys representing PTPLA said the school was unfairly targeted in a “rush to judgment” and wasn’t given proper due process to address concerns.
“The evidence here will show there’s been a sort of fearmongering, a sort of hysteria, a flame of emotions that were overblown and overindulged,” the school’s attorney, Kwame Mumina, said during the first day of the hearing.
Members of the statewide board’s staff testified that they came away with grave concerns about the school’s academic quality after visiting it.
Statewide Charter School Board executive director Rebecca Wilkinson, who visited PTPLA at least 15 times, said she saw signs of poor engagement of students. She reported seeing students sleeping or sitting in front of computers while not logged into classwork.
“I was concerned that too often students were not able to even tell me the course that they were working in, much less what they were doing,” she said.
Wilkinson said she had further concerns over whether the school’s special education and child nutrition services complied with law and the charter contract.
PTPLA finances also raised red flags when the school finished its first year with a $250,000 deficit. This school year, three teachers were laid off from the small teaching staff because of a lack of funds.
“This school is spending money it doesn’t have, and that is an issue,” said Thomas Schneider, the board’s attorney and deputy general counsel at the Attorney General’s Office.
Wilkinson initially reported seeing only one teacher providing instruction during a site visit this fall. PTPLA leaders said the report was false and the three laid-off teachers continued working as volunteers. Those teachers have since been rehired on part-time pay.
Multiple members of the board’s staff and Oklahoma State Department of Education officials testified to having difficulty getting PTPLA administrators to respond to issues and to file financial reports on time.
School officials acknowledged they struggled with financial and operational difficulties, but they said it never compromised student learning. They said they were caught off-guard when the statewide board placed PTPLA on a November meeting agenda to discuss deficiencies at the school.
The statewide board in that November meeting ultimately demoted the school to probation.
Sharri Coleman, PTPLA’s school board president, said the state was too quick to punish rather than offer support.
“If we’re all for students, then you as a board, as my authorizer, would help my board to make sure that we are getting the supports that we need so that we can help those students,” Coleman said on the witness stand.
After being placed on probation, PTPLA’s board demanded an apology from the state and contended there was “nothing to fix.”
Statewide board members became increasingly frustrated over the following months, contending school leaders refused to cooperate fully with state oversight. They finally ran out of patience in January, when they voted to initiate termination proceedings.
Bowles, PTPLA’s superintendent, warned that closing the school would harm the underprivileged students it was designed to serve.
“Most importantly, it will take away an opportunity to provide an education that is aligned to the needs of our Black and brown families in Oklahoma City,” she said during the hearing.
For the charter contract to be canceled, the statewide board must vote again to approve findings of fact from the termination hearing. That vote could take place as soon as next week, Shellem said.
PTPLA then would have 10 days to file an appeal with the board and, if rejected, to take the matter to district court.
Bowles didn’t confirm or reject the idea of challenging the state board in court.
“Right now, we’ll wait to hear from them as to what those next steps are,” she said.
Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence.
