NEW: Gist Finalist For Tulsa Job
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
The newspaper in Tulsa, Oklahoma is reporting that Deborah Gist is one of two finalists for the Superintendent's job for the Tulsa School system.
Gist came to RI in 2009 from the Washington, DC school system. When She was appointed she said, "I started my career as a teacher more than two decades ago, and I cannot imagine wanting to do anything other than helping children to learn. I have never and will never—even for a moment—forget the joys and challenges of teaching children every day, and that is the heart of every decision I make as a leader."
In 2010, she was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 who impact our world.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTGist received a bachelor of science degree in early-childhood education from the University of Oklahoma, a master of arts in elementary education and curriculum from the University of South Florida, a master’s degree in public administration from the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a doctoral degree in education from the University of Pennsylvania.
"Board member Leigh Goodson, who has been leading the search as a member of the board’s Leadership Sustainability Committee, announced at a Jan. 5 meeting that the board was still several weeks away “from being able to name a finalist or two finalists or maybe three.” That hasn’t happened, but multiple sources tell the Tulsa World that (Deborah) Gist and (Millard) House are set for final interviews, as well as invitation-only meetings with community leaders and select Tulsa Public Schools employees this weekend."
Gists Contract in RI
As GoLocalProv reported in December of 2014, her contract and future beyond June 30, 2015 is in doubt. "By law, we can only do 3 year contracts," said Rhode Island Board of Education Chair Eva Mancuso (told GoLocal in a December interview). "With the current contract, the sentiment from Chafee was he didn't want to extend contracts past his tenure, and it didn't make sense to do a year a and a half. That was his philosophy. [Governor-elect] Raimondo might feel that 3 years works. As chair, we know enough about Gist, that you either give her three years, or nothing. There's no in-between."
OK v RI
While Gist is a finalist for the Tulsa job, the numbers between the two regions are dramatically different.
Tulsa Public Schools serves approximately 42,000 students in 86 schools. The efforts include approximately 7,000 employees, 88 campuses, 250 school buses and about 173 square miles. The school system has an annual budget of $556 million.
In contrast to Rhode Island teachers salaries, Oklahoma’s are among the lowest. A recent GoLocal and FindTheBest analysis found that while elementary school teacher’s salaries in RI were the highest in the country ($72,630), in Oklahoma they are just $43,190.
Recently Rhode Island was graded a C+ in Education Week’s national scoring and Oklahoma received a D+.
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