This article was originally published in Oklahoma Voice.
OKLAHOMA CITY — Fifty-nine school districts, including the three largest in the state, have had their accreditation status downgraded over poor reading and math test scores.
The Oklahoma State Board of Education voted Thursday to designate the districts as “accredited with warning” along with eight others that had non-academic deficiencies. Accredited with warning is defined as having a deficiency that “seriously detracts” from the quality of a district’s education program, according to Oklahoma State Department of Education documents.
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This is the first time Oklahoma has applied a relatively new rule that penalizes districts’ standing if more than half of their students score “below basic” on yearly state reading or math tests for two years in a row.
Students who score “below basic” fail to demonstrate even partial mastery of their grade-level content. It signals a student is not on track to be college or career ready by the end of high school.
For 56 of the 59 affected districts, the academic deficiency was the only reason they were dropped to “accredited with warning,” the Oklahoma State Department of Education reported. If their test scores don’t improve by 5%, their accreditation status could fall even lower to probation, which would invite a host of extra state oversight.
“My main concern … is that we are supporting these districts as a state and as an agency to make sure that they can come out of that and they can not be on this list,” state board member Becky Carson said before the vote.
The new rule took effect in the 2025-26 school year. However, the downgrades are based on test scores from 2023-24 and 2024-25 because more recent test results weren’t available yet during accreditation reviews, according to the agency.
The affected districts include Tulsa Public Schools, Oklahoma City Public Schools and Epic Charter School, the three biggest districts in the state.
Epic is “not waiting for an accreditation designation to drive improvement,” Superintendent Shaun Ross said. The virtual charter school, which educates about 29,000 students, is implementing targeted academic interventions, strengthening instructional practices and prioritizing student growth, he said.
“While the state’s new accreditation rule introduces academic performance measures into a process historically focused on operational compliance, it is important to recognize that Epic has met all established operational accreditation requirements,” Ross said. “Like many districts across Oklahoma, we are now being evaluated under a new standard using historical assessment data that does not fully capture the academic progress currently underway.”
Tulsa, with over 32,000 students, and Oklahoma City, enrolling about 31,000, did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday.
Former state Superintendent Ryan Walters proposed the rule in 2024 to tie academic performance to a district’s accreditation status. Gov. Kevin Stitt approved it after the state Legislature took no action.
Until then, accreditation was based on compliance with state laws, financial standards, and other requirements for governance and operations.
Adding academics to annual accreditation reviews would hold districts accountable for their performance, Walters said at the time.
Some education advocates and legislative Democrats opposed the rule, saying it would unfairly punish districts that have higher rates of poverty and more students learning English as their non-native language.
A total of 358 Oklahoma districts were accredited with no deficiencies, the Education Department reported. A hundred were accredited with one deficiency, and 25 had more than one deficiency.
Accredited with warning is a tier below followed by probation.
Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com.