Calls for Walters to be held accountable grow after insulting comments, possible Open Meeting Act violation

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Legal experts tell News 4 the events of Wednesday’s Oklahoma State School Board meeting — are unprecedented and should alarm anyone with power to hold Walters and the Board accountable.

Those events include Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters personally attacking multiple public officials by making verifiably false claims about them, and ending with the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office alleging Walters and the Board may have violated state law.

At Wednesday’s meeting, the Oklahoma State School Board (OSBE) and Supt. Ryan Walters voted to table a decision on whether they would allow State Sen. Mary Boren (D-Norman) and other legislators to sit in on their executive session discussions, despite getting guidance from the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office advising them they legally had to let the legislators in.

In comments made to reporters following Wednesday’s meeting, Walters seemed to be unaware the Attorney General’s Office had emailed him and all state school board members that letter with the guidance on July 18.

Following the meeting, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office released a statement suggesting Walters and the board may have willfully violated Oklahoma’s Open Meeting Act.

After the meeting, Walters also falsely claimed to reporters that Sen. Boren wants to “make it where we can’t remove pedophiles from classrooms.”

He also called Bixby Public Schools superintendent Rob Miller a “clown” when asked about claims Miller had made on social media.

Boren says she showed up to Wednesday’s meeting with one focus: to sit in on the second of two scheduled executive session discussion OSBE had on its agenda for the meeting.

The agenda indicated the board planned to use the first executive session to hold “confidential communications with board counsel concerning a request by Senator Mary Boren to observe all executive sessions of the Board on July 31, 2024.”

It said, in the second executive session, the board would “discuss possible action” on four separate issues involving the possibly revocation of certain teachers’ teaching certificates.

The second executive session is what Boren said she wanted to observe.

According to the agenda, the board would first take a vote to enter the first executive session. After the board completed that session they were to vote to return to open session, and then discuss and take “possible action regarding the matters discussed in Executive Session.”

Boren expected, after the first session, the board would vote as to whether or not they would allow her to observe the second executive session.

The agenda indicated, after that occurred, the board would then hold a vote to enter into the second executive session.

It indicated the board would then return to open session, and discuss and take “possible action regarding the matters discussed” in the second executive session.

However, the board never ended up holding the second executive session.

Instead, the board only held the first one.

Upon returning to open session, the board voted to table making a decision on whether to allow Boren into their executive sessions.

Then, the board instead began taking action on the four items they weren’t supposed to discuss until the second executive session, despite the fact they hadn’t held it.

Boren said it appeared the board used the first executive session to discuss

“When you look at how they came back in and how quickly they moved to their motion, it's obvious to me that they prepared what they were going to say ahead of time, that they talked it over how that they were going to handle it, and they addressed those items on the agenda, and they talked about things in that first executive session that were beyond the scope of the first executive session,” Boren told News 4.

The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office also took note of what happened, telling News 4:

“We are very concerned by what appeared to be a willful violation of the Open Meeting Act. Our office will look further into the matter and take appropriate action.”

Former Assistant Oklahoma Attorney General Tim Gilpin says what transpired at Wednesday’s meeting caught his attention.

“Things keep getting stranger and stranger at the Department of Education,” Gilpin told News 4. “It's very serious when you violate the Open Meeting Act. That is not a casual statute that is there. The public has a right to know what their elected representatives are doing. So there's not shady behind closed doors meetings and decisions.”

He says if a public official is found to have willfully violated the Open Meeting Act, they could face jail time.

“If you violate the Open Records Act, you could have a fine for every violation and potentially a year in jail for a violation,” Gilpin said. “So typically, you know, a state board member or a state official goes out of their way to be in line with the Open Meeting Act, getting a letter or a communication from the state attorney general's office stating that this is what you need to do and then not following it is a very grave matter indeed.”

Gilpin also served on the State School Board for six years.

“If I were a [current] member of the State Board of Education, I would be worried about where this superintendent is leading me and what my personal responsibility, reliability could be,” Gilpin said. “Because once you take those votes, you're joining him in these reckless acts, potentially lawless acts.”

Walters addressed the issue with Sen. Boren with reporters after Wednesday’s meeting.  

“We’re looking legally and it doesn’t appear she has jurisdiction,” Walters told reporters.

He said he wanted the Attorney General’s office to spell out guidance in writing on how to handle the situation. Walters seemed unaware the AG’s office already emailed him and all board members a letter with that guidance back on July 18, claiming he had not heard from the AG’s office.

“We’ve requested specifics from the Attorney General, haven’t heard from him,” said Walters.

Gilpin said that also is very concerning.

“I've never heard of the state Board of Education ignoring the Open Meetings Act or communication from the Attorney General's office,” Gilpin said. “So it's got to make you think, along with everything else that's coming out of the Department of Education, what's going on in their heads? What are they thinking? Why do they think they're unanswerable to the law or to the public?”

Walters comments about Senator Boren didn’t end there. When speaking with reporters, he personally attacked Boren, and made false claims about her.  

“I’ve got left wing democrats like, Mary that want to come in and make it where we can’t remove pedophiles from the classrooms,” Walters said. “That’s what she’s wanting to do. She’s wanting to disrupt that process.”

Boren says she cannot ignore those baseless, false claims.

“If you do a Google search or go into your Bible app and you Google ‘strife,’ or do a word search in the Bible about strife and slander, you will see that that is listed as one of the deplorable things that people can do,” Boren said. “Think about a society where people can just go out and slander somebody for murder or, you know, child molestation or just allege that anybody just by rumor, you can just spread rumors about people that are unsubstantiated and that you can just stir up dissension by you know, picking making people fight against each other without any due process, without any equal protection, without any kind of formal system of trying to figure out who's telling the truth and who's not.”

Boren was not the only public official Walters attacked after Wednesday’s meeting.

Earlier this week, Bixby Public Schools Superintendent Rob Miller posted on X, claiming Oklahoma schools still have not received their Title I funding allocations.

When reporters asked Walters about Miller’s post on Wednesday, Walters turned to personal attacks again.

“He's a liar, I mean, he's really a true embarrassment,” Walters said. “He knows every year when he gets title one funds in… Rob's a clown and a liar, so he knows that, he’s an embarrassment.”

Miller took to X again Wednesday evening, responding to Walters’ comments about him.

“@RyanWaltersSupt Sir, your remarks crossed a line today,” Miller wrote. “You owe me and @BixbyPS an apology. Your false statements and ad hominem attacks are beneath your office. The students and families of #oklaed deserve better leadership than that. And let me make this point crystal clear: NEVER again disparage or slander my ethics, integrity, or character in public without evidence. I wore a Marine Officer's uniform while you still crawled in diapers. You're supposed to be a leader. Act like one.”

Additionally, News 4 reached out to the Oklahoma State Department of Education in response to the Attorney General's Office's comments suggesting Walters and the State School Board may have willfully violated the Open Meeting Act.

OSDE Chief Policy Advisor Matt Langston sent News 4 a statement containing personal attacks.

I don’t know what the Democrats told the Attorney General, but they are liars.

Nor do we know why the Attorney General would listen or believe them. No violations occurred.  Democrats do get sensitive when they have to own the fact they are protecting pedophiles, people who want to assassinate Trump, and promote indoctrination.

Matt Langston, OSDE Chief Policy Advisor

Gilpin says he’s never encountered an attitude like Walters’ in all his years of public service.

“The words coming out of the state superintendent’s mouth regarding Senator Boren or a host of other state officials and local district superintendents is just outrageous,” Gilpin said. “It is the kind of deceit and disgust that we should not really have in a state official. It's a means of deflection. It's a way of not answering the question at hand and going overboard to try to cover up whatever is going on.”

Boren also says she’s never seen a public official defy authority in the way Walters has.  

“I've been in state government a really long time,” Boren said. “The way the order of law is, is kind of like how our money is… that in order for our Attorney General to be perceived as having authority, we have to respect that authority. We respect that position, and we do things in a way that is either if you want to appeal that decision, then you go through the legal process of appealing it. But just to defy it is very rare.”

Gilpin says it’s an attitude that will do real damage if those with the power to stop it continue to tune it out.  

“You would hope at some point that even fellow Republican state officeholders would take this seriously and realize that the schoolchildren of Oklahoma are not being served,” Gilpin said. “In fact, they're being harmed by the negligence and guilt that's coming out of the Department of Education, and they should step forward and do something about this.”