Parent Who Posted Now-Viral State-Approved Waurika Psychology Assignment To Her Facebook Page Speaks Out

A truly unfortunate event happened in the classroom of Ashlyn Jade’s niece at Waurika Public Schools Monday afternoon.

According to an interview with Ashlyn this afternoon, Coach Roger Jesse, a teacher/coach with 40+ years in Oklahoma education – and someone with many years of service and an excellent reputation in Waurika Public Schools – gave his 11th grade psychology class an assignment that has now made internet viral status.

Coach Jesse was asked to teach a new extra curricular psychology class at Waurika High School this semester. Ashlyn believes that, in a hurry and under duress from a strenuous teaching/coaching schedule, he downloaded a STATE APPROVED psychology curriculum to use during his class on Monday afternoon, copied it and handed it out without really reviewing it.

Ashlyn’s niece, very uncomfortable with the subject matter, took a picture of the assignment and uploaded it to Snap Chat during class, where it stayed 24 hours – long enough for her 5th grade daughter to see it in her feed in the morning. Her daughter then screenshot the post and sent the photo to her mother.

Immediately upset, Ashlyn put in a call to Waurika High School Principal, Derek Milburn. When Principal Milburn returned her call, Ashlyn explained to him exactly what had happened and that she was very upset that, not only was her 11th grade niece exposed to this kind of assignment, but that her 5th grade daughter had found it on SnapChat.

According to Ashlyn, Principal Milburn seemed rushed and dismissed her by saying that ‘it was already taken care of and that she shouldn’t worry about it. All the parents of students who had been effected had been made aware.’

Ashlyn knew the Snap had gone viral and that a very large number of Waurika Public Schools students had already seen it. She told me she doesn’t believe that Mr. Milburn knew that fact, but because she felt as though the Principal was essentially dismissing her concern that her 5th grade daughter (and other students in the school system) had seen it, she posted the assignment to her Facebook page out of frustration and to make a point.

The post went viral in a short time, with even State Superintendent Ryan Walters posting it – unedited – from his social media accounts.

Not long after the post went viral, so did the accusations from community members pointed in her direction.

Ashlyn says she’s being accused of calling a beloved Coach a predator and she wants to say that this perspective isn’t at all true. During our interview, she called my attention back to her original post, the top of which is posted above. She never mentioned any names, nor even the school system. It only became known that the assignment was from Waurika because someone commenting on her post asked if the incident had happened in Waurika and she answered “yes”.

It wasn’t until Wednesday afternoon that Waurika Public Schools addressed the incident publicly with a letter posted to their Facebook page written by Cody Simmons, WPS’ Superintendent.

According to Ashlyn, Coach Jesse has been put on leave and is being asked to retire. She doesn’t believe that’s fair.

Ashlyn said that she made the post to “shed light on the fact that the teacher used a state approved curriculum. Coach Jesse copied and pasted an assignment that was approved by the Oklahoma State Department of Education. He was not a psychology teacher, he was a coach teaching a psychology class. He copied and pasted the OSDE curriculum and gave it to students without really reading it. He was just overworked.”

She advocates for the return of Roger Jesse and says that she “believes that the responsibility and repercussions for this terrible situation should not fall on the shoulders of the teacher, but on Principal Milburn, Superintendent Simmons and State Superintendent Ryan Walters” because this was part of a state approved psychology curriculum.

Ashlyn has a point. It seems as though the teacher made a really terrible mistake. If you were a hurried teacher and you went to the OSDE website and downloaded curriculum that had been approved for use in high school, would you really worry too much about it being inappropriate for use in state classrooms? I’m not excusing Coach Jesse of all the responsibility for the issue – whether it came from the OSDE or not, he should have really examined what he was using in class – but in light of Ashlyn’s comments, there is some plausibility for his lack of diligence.

In 2021, I wrote an article titled, “Oklahoma State Department of Education Promoting “Anti” Racist (CRT) Propaganda and Risk Behavior Surveys Through SEL and Counseling Services“. After seeing the information and curriculum being pushed under the Hoffmeister administration that was available ON THE OSDE WEBSITE, I totally believe that Coach Jesse downloaded something that should never have been used in an Oklahoma k-12 classroom because it was up on the OSDE website for teachers to download.

Who’s fault is that? Ultimately, it’s our Superintendent’s fault. The buck stops on his desk. He’s had no trouble pounding his dashboard during in-car videos railing (rightly) against discriminatory practices in schools, but he should be doing less pounding/videos and concentrating more on what’s on the state website for teachers to download.

Then, there’s the tepid, dismissive response of the Principal to Ashley. He – and the Superintendent – should have known that students would share that kind of crazy assignment on social media like crazy and be more concerned about ALL the students who could have seen it, instead of just those students in class.

Ashlyn Jade did what she felt like she needed to do as a parent, and an Aunt, and she’s taking a pretty good beating over it in the community. But then, our Superintendent posted an UNEDITED version to his social media. HOW RESPONSIBLE IS THAT? Shouldn’t he have focused on just the part about the investigation?

In the end, there’s a whole lot of blame to go around when it comes to this incident, but I don’t see Ashlyn as a party to that. Parents NEED to speak out when they see this kind of thing – that’s how they protect their children – and they should do that whether anyone else likes that or not.