Deftly Shifting Course for Brighter Prospects

Profile

WHEN LEADERS of a Gear Up conference asked a group of superintendents how many of their high school graduates completed college, Renee Dove thought she and her staff would have a pretty close guess. After all, she had worked for 39 years in the rural Okmulgee, Okla., schools, the first 32 as a teacher and library media specialist before becoming a curriculum leader. As the newly appointed superintendent, she had an unparalleled knowledge of the 1,347-student district.

She ventured to guess 15 to 18 percent. The actual number was a dismal 2 percent.

“We were stunned,” she admits. “We realized we were missing the mark in what we were doing to get kids ready for college and ready for their futures. We really, really had to talk about what we were doing and how we could change this.”

Dove quickly mobilized to instill college and career readiness into Okmulgee’s curriculum. Her inquiries led her to AASA’s Personalized Learning Cohort and a Utah school that had built a model personalized program. When she and her staff visited, Dove knew the concept would work well for Okmulgee.

Not wanting to waste time, they ignored skeptics and immediately built a personalized, blended learning program. Students in grades 9-12 may take classes at the local technical college and online coursework or work with eight Okmulgee teachers who shifted to being academic coaches and mentors.

Now in her fourth year as superintendent, Dove is seeing results from a program that she once thought might be career suicide. ACT scores are up, one student has graduated high school with an associate’s degree, and 143 students now participate in the dual enrollment option.

“Personalized learning school fills a gap that we needed,” says Starla Walters, Okmulgee’s professional development coordinator. “For the kids in there, this is a whole new world for them.”

Dove has applied her deft teaching hands to the superintendent’s job, notably her ability to adapt and shift course if something isn’t working as planned. She knew her strength was curriculum, so she hired a knowledgeable leader to manage the district’s business operations.

Financial footing remains slippery in Okmulgee, where 87 percent of students qualify for free- and reduced-price lunch and some deal with trauma, she says. “The hardest thing as far as this job is the ‘budget challenges,’” Dove says. “Our community is fabulous in providing paper drives and passing bonds, but the budget from the state department keeps getting cut, and when the enrollment is on the decline, you do everything you can not to close buildings and not close programs.”

Handling teacher salaries and benefits in the wake of statewide political tensions also has tested the superintendent. Oklahoma teachers went on strike last year to protest school funding and may strike again this year. 

But Walters says Dove has built a strong open-door policy that allows staff to share ideas and work as a team to improve the district’s five schools.

“Ms. Dove has a unique perspective for our school because she grew up here,” says Walters. “We went from a community where everything was booming [to one where] people and industries are leaving. She understands how it happened, and she has a better idea than someone who came from the outside.”