Tulsa teacher: ‘If my daughters were going to school in a place with pimps running around it, I would want to know’

An interesting story in the Tulsa World this weekend ("Tulsa Public Schools loses 35 percent of its teachers in two years, but many aren't leaving for higher pay") includes a quote from "an East Central High School teacher who said he threw in the towel two years before he had originally planned because of a lack of support with student discipline issues."

“Schools get paid based on butts in seats, so administrators are loath to suspend students because that funding is lacking for that time period,” said Mike McGuire, who served 20 years as East Central’s U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps instructor after retiring from his first career in the Army.

McGuire said recent news coverage of teacher, student and parent discontent at Edison Preparatory School sounded just like his last three or four years on the job at East Central. He estimated nearly 100 percent of the faculty exited the district or found placements elsewhere in TPS during that period because nothing improved after district officials surveyed and held private meetings with teachers.

“War was declared on the faculty,” McGuire said. “It didn’t matter how much they’d misbehave, cut class and curse teachers out, the students seemed to be the good guys and the faculty were the bad guys. And other students and their parents are concerned about the lack of discipline.”

McGuire said his tipping point was being formally reprimanded for how he responded to students concerned about two of their classmates being allowed to return to school after 10 days in jail on human trafficking complaints.

“I told my students, especially the girls, ‘If you’re concerned, you need to tell your parents so they can express their concern to their school board representative,’ ” McGuire said. “If my daughters were going to school in a place with pimps running around it, I would want to know.”