Incumbent Tulsa Public Schools District 4 Board of Education member E’lena Ashley is facing a challenge from former Tulsa City Councilor Connie Dodson, setting up one of the most watched elections in town on the April 7 ballot. In an unusual move, a few of Ashley’s board colleagues have endorsed her opponent, and even Tulsa City Council members have weighed in on the race.
Ashley is an Army veteran from Los Angeles who moved to Tulsa about 20 years ago while working on her master’s degree at Langston University. She was first elected in 2022 and benefited from $18,000 in dark-money mailers to unseate then-board member Shawna Keller. Among her first board actions was to join another member in asking Gov. Kevin Stitt to call for a special audit of TPS, which eventually revealed “significant” financial discrepancies and mismanagement under the district’s former superintendent.
Facing reelection, Ashley said her focus currently involves improving student academics in the district.
“We have a lot of work to do to get our academics up. More than 80 percent of our children are at basic or below proficiency, and that’s the focus I like to hone in on and make sure we are addressing at every meeting,” Ashley said. “With our new administration, we’re bringing in some of those things. So now we’re adding in more interventions in kindergarten through 3rd grade. That’s the hot topic on getting those interventions. I’d like to see them work in middle school as well.”
Dodson grew up in Tulsa until her family moved to Sapulpa, where she graduated high school. She ultimately moved back to Tulsa, where all of her children attended public schools. She previously worked for Tulsa Public Transit and represented District 6 on the Tulsa City Council from 2014 to 2022, losing a reelection effort to Councilor Christian Bengel.
Dodson said she would like to see the TPS Board of Education have more focus on students’ career readiness.
“Getting our trades back into schools. Getting those opportunities where people that are interested in welding, or electrical, or plumbing, or different things like that can start getting those base skills in high school and not closing those doors,” Dodson said. “Because we know not all kids are good at book learning. Not all kids are college-bound, for whatever reason. Whether they feel like there is a financial roadblock, or whether they feel like they’re not good learners out of books, or they don’t test well, there are so many other ways to funnel those children and young adults into careers that have different paths. I think it’s important to meet the needs of kids where they are and recognize those challenges they face and find ways to navigate around them.”
Both candidates spoke with NonDoc ahead of the election. The polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 7, with early voting available April 2 and 3 at the new Tulsa County Election Board office.
Dodson talks absenteeism, cafeteria; Ashley discusses board policy, oversight
Asked to name changes she would like to see in the district, Dodson said she wants more focus on preventing chronic absenteeism. She advocated for having a staff member at each school site focused on working with families to decrease instances of truancy.
“I know truancy and getting kids to school is a big issue. I think some of that won’t be solved by buses. I think some of that will potentially have to be having conversations with parents,” Dodson said. “There are patterns. There are parent patterns. [A teacher] has one student who will show up on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, but they’re absent every Tuesday and Friday. So what is happening in that situation where a student is only making it to school three days a week consistently on the same days and not the other two? How can we help the family address that to get the kid in school more days a week to meet the goals and guidelines and meet the challenges that we have to get them to those benchmarks?”
Ashley argued the board should have a more direct role in the oversight of third parties who work with Tulsa Public Schools. Nonprofit organizations frequently partner with TPS to provide various services, and Ashley said she would like agreements for providing those services to include board oversight and parental consent.
“[Third-party partners of the district] have access to our children daily, and parents don’t have an opportunity to know or preview or anything, and that’s a travesty,” Ashley said. “I think there should oversight from the board (on these organizations), and I think there should be informed consent with the parents knowing the organizations that are brought in.”
Dodson said she wanted the district to improve its cafeterias and create lunch menus that would encourage attendance.
“I think we need to discuss also bringing our cafeterias back to life. Actually cooking on site,” Dodson said. “I remember when I was going to school, there were certain days that there were things on the menu kids didn’t miss. They were there. I mean bean chowder, cinnamon rolls, the goulashes. Different things that they cooked there and those kids were there. Unless they were home truly sick, they did not miss those days. And I think that’s another thing that we could look at doing that would help approve attendance. Because if they know they are getting really good food that they can’t wait to eat, they’re going to get there, and they are going to be more motivated.”
Ashley’s tenure on the board
Asked if there were policy changes in the district she would like to see, Ashley said she wanted policies to allow for more questions and discussion at board meetings.
“Well, I think the policies should definitely include more voice of the community,” Ashley said. “I just had an issue on the board recently where I wanted to ask more questions and have more discussion at the board level between the board members, and I was told by the attorney who sits on the board that it was illegal to have discussion about the agenda item of increasing the budget $760,000. That is the only place that we have to have these questions, but they refuse to have it, citing that one policy. So I think we need to review the policies and that it should be illegal to not have discussions at the board.”
Croisant, Moniz back Dodson; Ashley calls colleagues ‘rubber stamp’
TPS board members tend to stay out of, or even support, each other’s reelection campaigns, but at least two current colleagues have decided they would like to see Ashley off the board.
Both John Croisant and board Vice President Calvin Moniz have endorsed Dodson’s campaign, with Croisant speaking at her campaign launch. Tulsa City Councilors Laura Bellis and Lori Decter Wright also attended Dodson’s campaign launch and endorsed her.
Asked about her colleagues’ support of her opponent, Ashley argued they have historically “rubber stamped” most of what the administration asks for. She said it is important to retain a dissenting voice on the board.
“You know, I’ve been there four years, and Croisant has never, ever disagreed with the administration. He has consistently — what I call — rubber stamped,” Ashley said. “One of the things that one of the board members said is that we don’t have time to have these discussions at board meetings. And we are not to have a quorum and have a discussion anywhere else. So where else will we have a discussion about school business but at the board meeting? And this is the kind of mentality of rubber stamping.”
Dodson candidly noted that she believed the endorsements were motivated by other public officials’ frustrations with Ashley.
“Truly, a lot of these endorsements have less to do with me and more to do with the fact she has created such division and so many problems,” Dodson said. “I have to ask sometimes what her true goal is other than being disruptive.”
Asked what she wants voters to know about her role in a controversial lawsuit against the district for what she alleged were violations of state law in the process of hiring TPS Superintendent Ebony Johnson, Ashley said she joined the suit because she believed the board failed to follow its own policies.
“I think the way this lawsuit was handled is a way of shutting the mouth of the common citizen to stand up and speak the truth,” Ashley said. “The lawsuit had six different judges that recused themselves. That was highly unusual. The final judge who did the dismissal didn’t even sign off on the dismissal. They refused to put their name on it, and there was evidence that was destroyed that was never questioned or brought forth. Those are the things I know about this lawsuit. People have said this lawsuit was to prevent Ebony Johnson, but this has nothing to do with Dr. Johnson. In fact, I was the one who was a part of a unanimous vote to have her be interim (superintendent). But I think that we already have a policy in place to do a district-wide and nationwide search for the most qualified person to be superintendent, and we neglected to follow that policy, and that’s why we brought that lawsuit. Because we did not do the due diligence that I believe the board should do.”
Dodson also referenced the lawsuit during her interview, arguing it wasted the district’s money and could have been avoided if Ashley trusted the board’s attorneys.
“I would understand legal issues before I file lawsuits that cost us money,” Dodson said. “I am not afraid to talk to in-house legal. They are there for a reason. I spent eight years on the (Tulsa City) Council and not once felt the need to seek legal advice outside of our legal counsel at the city.”
$609 million bond also on the ballot
(Editor’s note: This section also appears in NonDoc’s preview of the Tulsa Public Schools Board of Education District 7 race.)
Beyond TPS District 4 and TPS District 7 races, Tulsa Public Schools voters will also decide on a $609 million bond package April 7. Four propositions comprise the package, which has increased by $19 million since it was first introduced in November. The increase stems from the addition of contingency funds and additional STEM funding, according to the Tulsa Flyer. The package would not increase property tax rates, according to TPS’s bond information page, but it would extend otherwise expiring taxes.
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The first proposition, valued at nearly $201 million, is for “student opportunities.” Funds would be spent on items such as instructional learning materials, district-wide fine arts facilities, wellness and physical education equipment, district-wide STEM labs and equipment and district-wide post-secondary readiness and career academies.
The second proposition, valued at $276 million, will “provide modernized HVAC, roofing and more to cut energy costs and improve building conditions.” Projects include remodeling of district-wide facilities, safety and security upgrades and district-wide roof replacement and repairs.
The third proposition is focused on technology and is valued at nearly $105 million. Projects include student and teaching technology and cybersecurity, data storage and network systems and software.
The fourth proposition, which is intended to fund transportation needs and is valued just north of $27 million, includes the purchase of buses, driver’s education vehicles and programming, fleet vehicles and camera and WiFi equipment for buses.
During a March 10 forum hosted by the Tulsa Flyer and Tulsa Press Club, TPS Superintendent Ebony Johnson said strong schools lead to a strong city.
“We are not holding anything back. The students deserve to know that we are being transparent, fiscally responsible, and they also deserve to know that strong schools means a strong Tulsa for them,” Johnson said.
Johnson also addressed transparency concerns related to the audit of the district’s 2015-2023 expenditures released in February 2025 by State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd. The audit found “a systemic lack of internal controls and administration,” Byrd said during a press conference releasing the report. The audit was requested by Gov. Kevin Stitt in 2022 after two TPS board members sent a letter notifying him about “troubling information” amid allegations of embezzlement by a former administrator.
Johnson said the district is bringing in outside support to offer “a fresh set of eyes” to look at past financial practices while setting and achieving goals for the future. She said district officials are in “very close conversation” with the auditor’s office as the second phase of the TPS audit begins.
“When I think about our young people and I interact with them, it is not fair to them that there are alleged people who behaved badly. (…) Our students do not even know who they are, and it is not fair to them that they even need to care about people who did not take care of their responsibilities,” Johnson said. “What matters is that we have a fresh start in order to provide our young people right now with what they deserve.”
