The head of Tulsa Public Schools told a roomful of local business leaders Tuesday that the health of TPS depends on their support.

“Our team members, families, students and alumni are your customers, your employees, your neighbors, your friends,” TPS Superintendent Dr. Ebony Johnson said. “Investing in our young people and their future is vital to the future success of all of us. For the city and region we call home, these young people are your employers, your future employers, and we all have a vested interest in seeing our district succeed.”

Johnson addressed an audience of about 180 at the Tulsa Regional Chamber’s Joint Board of Directors and Board of Advisors Meeting at Tulsa Tech’s Client Services Center (Lemley Campus).

Afterward, she took part in a reception that gave her the chance to talk one-on-one with many of the meeting attendees.

In December, Johnson became the first Black woman to lead TPS on a permanent basis. Three months earlier, she had assumed the role on an interim basis after the Board of Education approved a separation agreement with Dr. Deborah Gist.

On Tuesday, Johnson praised Chamber TPS liaison Nicole Morgan, CEO of Resolute PR, for deepening the collaboration between the Chamber and the school district.

Johnson also said she has seen the impact made on TPS by Tulsa’s NextGEN Talent, a Chamber-sponsored externship program led by Rue Ramsey, the Chamber’s vice president of workforce and talent strategies.

The TPS superintendent hailed some of the district’s successes, which include Booker T. Washington High School again being named best high school in Oklahoma by U.S. News & World Report magazine.

Dual enrollment in Tulsa Tech and TPS has risen 300% during the past decade, and, according to TPS data, the district has the largest and longest-running Indian Education program in Oklahoma.

Johnson, however, also talked about ways TPS can improve, with school attendance a primary focus.

Currently, 40% of all TPS students are chronically absent, meaning they’ve missed 10% or more of the academic year for any reason, including excused absences. The root causes of the problem are physical and mental health, safety, housing insecurity, and transportation.

To combat the issue, Johnson and Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum this month announced a new citywide “Attend to Win!” initiative.

“Together, we can dismantle barriers to attendance, develop incentives and build momentum,” Johnson said.

Other ways businesses and their employers can help TPS include volunteering, hosting students for career exploration and/or internships,and joining the Partners in Education program.

“This work is both personal and professional to me,” Johnson said. “I’m energized by the responsibility and the challenge as a leader and the CEO of the largest and most historic school district in the state of Oklahoma. I appreciate your partnership and welcome more of it.”

Mike Neal, president and CEO of the Tulsa Regional Chamber, thanked Johnson for her dedication. 

“We appreciate your charisma; we appreciate your candor,” he said. “We appreciate your backbone. We appreciate your aggressiveness.

“When you first became interim superintendent and connected with some members of our executive leadership team at the Chamber, we told you we had your back. We told you we would support you. I hope we’ve proved through a number of meetings and a number of dialogue sessions with Superintendent (Ryan) Walters that we’ve done what we’ve said we would do and will continue to do that.”