By Sam

NORMAN, OK–  On February 8th, 2024, Nex Benedict, an indigenous 16 year-old non binary teen and Owasso High Schooler died. The day before, they had been assaulted by 3 girls in an Owasso bathroom, but the administration did not call emergency services. Candlelight Vigils have now been held in cities across the state to mourn their death, and many more vigils are planned this week across the country.  

One of the many vigils on Feb. 24 was held in Norman, Oklahoma. The event was organized by local PFLAG members and city council member Helen Grant. Multiple community members were scheduled to speak, some local politicians, and two alumni of Owasso High School, where the assault took place.

Both Owasso speakers recounted their experiences at the high school, and the lack of support and resources they found while attending. 

“I know that Owasso isn’t the only school district where queer children suffer, there is an epidemic of violence aimed at queer youth especially in Oklahoma because our state superintendent Ryan Walters and other elected officials perpetuate dangerous rhetoric,” Marley Hutchins said, an  Owasso High School Alum.

 Riley Worley also outlined their experience with this same issue, saying “Owasso through its staff, through its administration, and through the community is set up to be violent not just to queer people but minorities of all walks.”

These sentiments have been echoed throughout Oklahoma. Many have brought up the culture Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma State Superintendent, and many senators have been cultivating in the last several years as a large part of why ostracization of queer youth may have found it’s home in the state.

Including Ryan Walter’s choice to appoint Chaya Raichik to the Oklahoma education department’s Library Media Review Committee. 

Chaya Raichik, the person behind the “Libs of Tiktok” Twitter account, had targeted Owasso Teacher, Tyler Wrynn, two years ago for posting openly of their support of queer students. After an onslaught of harassment following the posts about Wrynn, the teacher resigned from the school.  Sue Benedict, Nex’s mother, was asked for their opinion on this previous event by The Independent.

“Nex was very angry about it,” Sue said. She goes on to explain that this sort of teacher support around gender issues isn’t promoting sexualized content, but rather  “allowing the students to be who they are.”

At the time Owasso schools did little besides making a statement that Wrynn had in fact chosen to resign. The school did not provide much information on their stance of the resignation citing it as a “personnel issue,” and therefore unable to comment.

But this lack of structured support for Oklahoma teachers is far from unfamiliar. Oklahoma superintendent, Ryan Walters, showed an anti-union video in a May 2023 State Board of Education meeting as part of a “public awareness campaign.” Walters funded the creation of the video with state money to the tune of $22,500. 

In May 2023 Walters referred to teacher’s unions as “terrorist organizations” during a congressional hearing. He then went on to do a Fox News interview where he said that the Oklahoma Educators Association doesn’t support the Teacher Empowerment Fund because they are “Marxist and want all teachers to make the same amount of money.”

The Oklahoma Educators Association, not a Marxist organization, is Oklahoma’s largest “union” for teachers,  and an affiliate of the National Educators Association.

The Teacher Empowerment Fund is Walters and Governor Kevin Stitt’s alternative for salary raises for teachers. The Fund uses the $22M from the Oklahoma Education Lottery Trust Fund to give bonuses to select teachers, using a broad and unspecific metric,  in schools that chose to opt-in. Almost a year on from Walters’ comments to Fox News in January 2024 only 12 out of more than 500 applied for the program and paid out only one percent of the total fund.

Other efforts supported by Walters to curb unions in Oklahoma comes in the form of Republican Senator, Julie Daniels’, Senate Bill 1513. The Bill introduced this month to the school board, seeks to maintain schools access to Professional Oklahoma Educators, a non-union organization for teachers.

Senate Bill 1513 says “No school district, employee of a school district, or employee organization shall deny by any means, including a collective bargaining agreement, a statewide professional educators’ association equal access to employees of the school district.” 

In this case an “employee organization” referring to state unions such as the Oklahoma Educators Association, and “professional educators’ association” referring to organizations like Professional Educators Oklahoma. The bill makes certain that any and all future resources that a union organization has access to in a school is also made available to non-unions.

Caleb Creed, a former Oklahoma teacher, said that he opted-in to Professional Educators of Oklahoma in his first year teaching music at Cache Intermediate School. But says that the organization provided little fundamental support beside a promise of potential legal help.

He explains that his understanding now is that “they (POE) wanted to avoid any hassle with collective bargaining and so this is a form of cooptation… If they can get in early with you and get you into professional organizations then you’re not going to join a union.”

Creed, now a founder and organizing member of the Red Dirt Collective, a group that works to create a movement in solidarity with poor and working-class folks through organizing and mutual aid, has said that teachers and paraprofessional school workers alike haven’t always been supported by the Oklahoma Educators Association union either.

“When these book bans came out a bunch of teachers wanted to strike and the Oklahoma Educators Association would not authorize a strike,” Creed says.

He also recounts a situation helping some school staff attempt to make independent unionizing efforts within the school. But shortly thereafter he received a call saying the Oklahoma Educators Association  had unionized them already.

“The active independent worker led labor movement that was underway was thwarted by them coming through in a single day, in a single lunch hour, and signing up everybody in the preexisting OEA union.”

Oklahomans have watched school staff participation dip in the last several years, but teachers need organizations that will look out for them and other school district staff.

Creed, who left teaching in 2012, had a class of 50 students in his third and final year. Some of these students also had Individualized Education Plans (IEPS) requiring specific accommodations, but he was left with no support from the school. 

He explains that in his own experience a “worker led” robust teacher’s union would have been the kind of support he needed to stay. “Public Unions can make public institutions function better because they protect the worker.”

As outlined by Owasso alumni Marley Hutchins and Riley Worley, students can feel when their school and their teachers aren’t able to provide the support they need to keep students safe.

When conditions in our schools are dire enough to make teachers leave, our students won’t get the support they need, and that could make the difference.