Tulsa Public School's First Day Of Classes For New Superintendent

Monday was the first day of classes for Oklahomaâ€™s largest school district. Thousands of Tulsa Public School students returned to class Monday morning. <br/><br/>Elementary school children were the

Monday, August 21st 2006, 10:33 am

By: News On 6

Monday was the first day of classes for Oklahomaâ€™s largest school district. Thousands of Tulsa Public School students returned to class Monday morning.

Elementary school children were the first to report, with their day starting at 8 AM. At the districtâ€™s high schools, the first bells rang at 8:45 AM.

Students at Dove Science Academy are getting an extra week off, due to construction delays.

Monday was also the first day of school for Tulsa's new superintendent. Dr. Michael Zolkoski spent the morning meeting students, teachers and school principals.

News on 6 reporter Jennifer Loren caught up with him as he toured some east Tulsa campuses. Dr. Michael Zolkoski has big plans for Tulsa Public Schools. Those plans begin with visits to every single school in his new district. His first stop was at Tulsa's eastern-most school, Sandburg Elementary.

To get the year started, Dr. Zolkoski felt the need to visit each and every school in his district. He says he's interested in seeing all the facilities and meeting people along the way. "Just getting a feel for our students, for our teachers, for our buildings. Each campus has its own personality and I'm trying to pick up on that."

Dr. Zolkoski says he has big plans for TPS, beginning with leadership and focusing in on multiple strategies of teaching. "We have so many different learning styles with students that we're going to need a lot of professional development and try to get our strategies correct for all our students. "

His plans include taking a look at the organizational structure of the district and possibly making some changes there by next year. "We need to look at what we're doing and how we're organized to make sure that we compress our administration so that we're more of a consumer-based, customer service-type organization."

Dr Zolkoski says he has a lot of ideas, but for day one, he's keeping it simple, getting to know what he already has to work with. "Tulsa is truly the jewel of Oklahoma and we have a lot of people, a lot of campuses that are the gems of Oklahoma and I really believe that we want to enhance that and let everyone know about that."