Bubbaworld

On March 7th, Julie Owens appeared before the school board in a standing room only meeting to air her grievances against Principal Angela Rogers and to present her petition seeking a review of Roger’s administrative abilities.

In addition to Julie Owens, Terry Wilkerson requested to speak to the board voicing his concerns about Rogers. Wilkerson made allegations of Rogers intimidating his five year old child and stated that he and his wife took their children out of the Talihina Schools due to the abuse the children were suffering at the hands of Rogers. Wilkerson went on to tell the school board that he did not think that children should be treated as Rogers treats them and he did not think that she should be in a school system anywhere. Wilkerson went on to state that he wanted the board to call for Rogers’ resignation. At that point the audience burst into applause.

Following Wilkerson’s statement to the school board, other parents added to the chorus of complaints against Rogers, with this complaint period reportedly lasting for twenty minutes.

Julie Owens also voiced her complaints against Rogers and attempted to present her petition to the school board. Board President Wayne Burnett announced that he felt that an ‘independent investigation’ would be required and asked that Owens hold her petition until the conclusion of that investigation.

Burnett then made a motion to employ Terri Thomas as legal counsel for the school board and have her conduct the ‘independent investigation’ and report back to the school board on April 6th.

At the request of Julie Owens, we at Bubbaworld did a bit of research upon Terri (reported in news media as Terry) Thomas. In doing that research we found a web page revealing some of Thomas background. For reference see Organization of Rural Oklahoma Schools dated August, 2003.

The referenced news letter contains an article purportedly by Terri Thomas detailing her professional activities and her relationship with the Organization of Rural Oklahoma Schools.

This information led us to examine the organization’s web site further and specifically the OROS Officers Listing, which interestingly enough lists Terri L. Thomas as legal counsel for the organization and which also lists Talihina Schools Superintendent Ray Henson as the organization’s treasurer.

This pre-existing relationship between the Superintendent of Talihina Schools and the ‘independent investigator’ hired to investigate the allegations against Rogers has the potential of casting doubts upon the ‘independence’ of the investigation. This is particularly the case owing to the potential for civil suits involving multiple parties and Rogers’ history with other school systems.

In 1996, while principal of a Howe, Oklahoma elementary school, Rogers, then Angela Ramsey, was placed on administrative leave and ultimately resigned as part of a settlement with the school district. The meeting at which Ramsey resigned was an ‘all nighter’, during which five hours were spent with a parade of elementary teachers speaking out against her administrative techniques or the lack thereof. Other issues raised included her involvement in a field trip for special education students to Tulsa in order to attend an Ozzie Osborn concert, a poetry reading session for special education students at which the walls of a dressing room were festooned with soiled diapers to simulate the stench of a slave ship and allegations that she told some students in the library that she didn’t want to see their “ugly little faces” in there again.

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