TPS Board President Expects Agreement On Filling Open District Seat, Hopeful To Avoid Special Election

The Tulsa school board president said Friday night the board is making progress in trying to pick who should fill an empty seat.

The seat has been open since January, and the board has not agreed on anyone for weeks.

A total of seven candidates came in Friday night to be interviewed by the board during executive session, which lasted about two hours.

The District 2 seat opened in January when Judith Barba Perez resigned. About 20 people applied for the position, and the board has not been able to agree on anyone so far.

On Friday night, the board interviewed four candidates they had not before, and three who they had interviewed already.

While the board could not take any action, they did talk about what they would like to do at Monday's regular board meeting.

Right now, President Stacey Woolley expects that a board member will make a motion to re-open the application process, with a goal to do more interviews next Thursday, before spring break.

From there, Woolley expects the board will be able to agree on somebody to fill the seat, once everyone is back from spring break.

“We didn’t necessarily discuss any preferences or any opinions of what people had with regard to potential appointees. But I have every faith that we will come to an agreement on the 20th,” Woolley said.

If the board cannot come to an agreement, voters would make the decision in a special election in June, with the possibility of a runoff election in the fall.

Woolley indicated the board would like to avoid that option.

“We have heard from District 2 constituents that it’s important that they have representation prior to potentially September. We also recognize that if we were to have to have two rounds of that special election, that could cost us upwards of $70,000. So in order to both be financially responsible and make sure the district 2 folks have representation that they deserve, we want to make sure and make that happen on the 20th,” Woolley said.

The deadline to either appoint someone, or send it to voters, is March 24.