School Boards

Wednesday, April 2nd (2025), former Oklahoma State School Board Member, Kendra Wesson, joined us to talk about all the things – what she felt like after Governor Stitt (King Stitt) fired her from the school board, how she got the news, the frustration she felt at her firing – was it for political drama and NAEP scores, or because she was ‘hurting’ kids – and what she learned from her years of serving.

Our conversation was wide-ranging and covered a lot of ground between politics and education and I truly suggest you watch the whole thing. It really was a great interview. You can find the full interview on our Rumble and YouTube channels.

Because I’m still angry about her firing, I would just like to remind everyone that, King Stitt – as I like to call him, because Kings do whatever they want whenever they want, without a care in the world as to the ramifications – has a truly ‘off-with-your-head’ governing style (don’t forget, one of his houses burned down so he fired the head of the Oklahoma Forestry Service much to the anger of Oklahoma firefighters who apparently loved the guy) and because of this, removed one of the hardest workers in the state from that board. I hope that fact is NEVER forgotten. I hope that’s his legacy – that he acts first, doesn’t get all the facts and does what he wants. But enough of my rant about our lame duck governor.

At any rate, as usual, Kendra was exceptionally poised and graceful throughout the interview and it was clear that her time on the Board gave her perspective she hadn’t had previously. We talked about school boards several times – and those are the things we’ll cover in the clips because it’s such important information. For example, in the clip below we all talk about how important school boards – and even other boards. Why are ‘regular’ people not on these boards? Why not moms and dads? Why is it always business associates or cronies? Kendra and I both have seen many people sitting on boards who don’t VALUE their job. It’s just padding their resume. Few on a board really do the work. And since the boards aren’t doing the work, that puts the oneness on CITIZEN to go to ALL board meetings to keep the members accountable to doing their jobs. “It’s just one meeting a month,” as Kendra says!

In the clip below, Kendra calls us all out – school board elections are one time a month, but we should be going to the meetings EVERY MONTH. Holding the board accountable is the job of The People. If we only show up at election time, it’s like coming into a play after intermission! We’re far, far behind at that point. It’s a YEAR ROUND JOB.

Though is is truly an AWFUL miscarriage of justice that Kendra Wesson is no longer on the State School Board, she has learned a whole lot in the process and that will not only make her stronger, but allow her to make US stronger as she educates us on her lessons!

In fact, we’ll have Kendra back with Sherrie Conley on Wednesday, May 21st! You won’t want to miss that!

Wednesday, January 22nd, our friend “Mary” from V1SUT substack was on the podcast to talk about former Wetumka Public Schools teacher and Coach, Brent McGee. You can find the full live video here on Rumble and also on our YouTube channel.

As Mary talked about in the video clip below the Wetumka Board of Education is NOT protecting kids, they’re protecting Brent McGee’s wife, who also happens to be the Superintendent of Wetumka. I would say I couldn’t believe it, but we’ve heard the same story over and over and over.

But here’s the thing – as we say in the video – it HAS to be up to Wetumka residents and parents to make the Board do the right thing. It’s clear that unless parents and community members are there in force watching everything they do and pushing back, students of the district won’t be protected from sexual abuse.

This fact is illustrated by another story Mary tells, about Cody Barlow, the middle school Principal at Wewoka Public Schools. In fact, despite an eye-witness account of sexual misconduct with Barlow and a 7th grade student and a civil trial in which Barlow was found guilty and the school forced to pay nearly 2 million dollars in restitution to the families of four boys, the outcome of the criminal trial was much different.

How can that be? How can the outcome be so very different? The civil trial was moved out of Seminole County, while the criminal trial was adjudicated in the county.

This should upset every taxpaying citizen who cares about children. This absolutely has to stop.

Again, though it’s really up to parents and taxpayers in these districts to make this stop, so few will speak out in small towns. This is a comment left on our Facebook account under our live video feed that explains:

Small town corruption is nothing new. No one in this small town in that school system will turn on each other because to do do would make them guilty [of] not doing anything. They were there and they knew what was going on. When you are someone who grew up in [this] town, with your mom as a teacher, and your dad as a business owner and, now you are infiltrated into that system, no one is going to believe you are the villain! Just because he didn’t do it to your kid or grandkid, doesn’t mean he didn’t do it to someone else. Teachers are mandatory reporters and if they know and do nothing [they] should be held as accountable as the one who was doing the harm to the child. This should be moved out of the county and prosecuted elsewhere.

There is safety in numbers and beyond that, there’s CHANGE in numbers! DA’s can be unelected and good ones elected, school board members can be voted out, or in – it all depends upon what people in the community set their mind to doing – but no matter what; we must ALL set our minds on PROTECTING KIDS!

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Kendra Wesson: Lessons From Her OK State School Board Appointment

Are Rural Oklahoma Courts Inept Or Corrupt?

PRESS RELEASE – NOTICE OF AVAILABILITY 5.2.22