Stillwater educator announces run for Senate District 21

Feb. 23—Stillwater has a new candidate running for Oklahoma State Senate District 21.

In September 2023, Sen. Tom Dugger (R-Stillwater) announced that he would not seek a third term in the Oklahoma Senate.

Robin Fuxa has considered running for the State Legislature since the 2018 Oklahoma teachers' strike. But it wasn't until January that she left a literacy education position at Oklahoma State University to pursue the Senate District 21 seat.

She's kicking off her campaign at 5 p.m. Thursday at Stonecloud Brewing Company at 917 S. Husband Street. Networking begins at 5 p.m. and the event opens at 5:30 p.m.

Fuxa grew up in Chandler and graduated high school from Strother Public Schools. After graduating from OSU with her bachelor's in elementary education in 2000, she taught school in Bartlesville and Pawnee. She received her master's in literacy and library media in 2004 and, then, obtained her doctorate in education with an emphasis in curriculum studies.

In all, Fuxa has been in the education field for 23 years, the last 15 years of which she was part of the literary education faculty at the College of Education and Human Sciences, in addition to helping place interns in public schools.

"The thing I've enjoyed most about running is that as an educator, a pet peeve of mine is when policy makers write legislation without taking time to talk with and learn from people in my field. I don't have the hubris to claim I'm an expert in professions I haven't been part of," Fuxa said. "I've had so much fun sitting down with people and hearing about their professional lives, their passions, their needs and their hopes."

Fuxa said now is the time to act to save public schools, not only for her own kids, but for this district and for the state.

"Our public schools are the heart of the community. We need a caring, qualified teacher in every classroom, and we need to take much better care of those teachers. Our kids are worth it," Fuxa said.

As a teacher, Fuxa said she's had a window into students' lives, and knows how devastating it can be when a family member doesn't have adequate health coverage or can't access the care they need because of the state's shortage of medical professionals. She wants to work to improve those.

Fuxa is also focused on issues such as investing in higher education, providing healthcare to all, expanding employment opportunities, supporting small businesses, fixing the childcare crisis, meeting veterans' needs and ensuring better elderly care.

But she's said many of these goals can't be accomplished without addressing education issues.

Funding public education

Fuxa said at the time of the 2018 Oklahoma teachers' strike, there was a groundswell of support, but funding didn't follow to the degree that it needed to.

She said Oklahoma education dollars are still $1,786 below the regional average per pupil per year, compared to surrounding states.

If Oklahoma increased its per pupil funding to the current regional average for school funding, that would mean that Stillwater would need $11.25 million more in funding; Perkins would need $2.75 million more; Yale would need $757,000 more; and Mannford would need $2.63 million more.

"We're talking a really substantive amount of funding that we're missing compared to other states in the region, and that just doesn't serve our children well," Fuxa said. "If we're looking at nationally competing, we need to make sure we provide funding."

Teacher shortage

Fuxa said Oklahoma needs more paraprofessional and teacher assistant support and more overall support for staff and faculty in schools.

"We have a teacher exodus in Oklahoma," Fuxa said. "I don't think we can any longer call it a 'shortage.'"

She said 30,000 certified educators left the state over a six-year period, according to a 2018 Oklahoma Educator Supply and Demand Report conducted by the Oklahoma State Department of Education.

Not only are teachers leaving in increasing numbers, but also the "nasty rhetoric" and "restrictive policies" are keeping teachers from staying in Oklahoma, Fuxa said.

"Teachers need the flexibility to do the work well by our students and make sure they're safe and welcome at school," Fuxa said. "And we have a state superintendent who is toxic toward our teachers and toward any child he sees as different from the little mold he'd like to keep them in."

She said State Superintendent Ryan Walters was brought to power with backing from out-of-state billionaires and think tanks such as the Walton Foundation and Every Kid Counts, whose goals are to create narratives with the intent to undermine faith in Oklahoma schools.

"These culture war issues are not issues we see in Oklahoma schools, but this narrative is being advanced that we have to protect children from the 'whatever' buzzword of the day is, because they want to undermine faith in our schools in order to privatize," Fuxa said.

But she said teachers are not the problem.

"Our teachers are in our communities, they're from our communities, they care deeply about our children and they deserve the respect from the folks in office," Fuxa said.

Fuxa said she's made many trips to the State Capitol since 2018 to meet directly with policy makers, and in several cases as part of the Oklahoma Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, advocating for quality teachers in every classroom. She participated in several interim studies on teacher quality, not only making sure there were teachers in the classrooms, but that they were well-prepared to teach.

Fuxa said there are more than 4,600 emergency certified teachers across the state, and that number continues to rise.

"An emergency certified teacher is somebody who has a degree, but they don't necessarily have any background or content experience in the subject area they're going to be teaching, so they may or may not know the content, but they also are not required to have any preparation in how to teach," Fuxa said.

She said teachers need "a really big toolkit" to be successful at their job. Although she appreciates those emergency certified teachers who are stepping up, she said turnover rate is really high for those who come into teaching through that route. In addition, adjunct teachers who step into the classroom are not required to have a bachelor's degree or to be observed in action.

"They are not to blame," Fuxa said. "The system that perpetuates pushing experienced professionals out of the classroom is the problem, and that's what we have to address."

Top reasons teachers leave

Fuxa said that respect and low pay are two of the top reasons teachers are leaving Oklahoma classrooms.

"With that respect piece comes the other support that teachers need to do the work well, and when they see that it's difficult to provide the services they know children need, that's very frustrating," Fuxa said. "... There is no other profession where we would just keep pushing the back door open further if we saw this kind of crisis."

There's a shortage of special education teachers, counselors, therapists and certified library media specialists, and it's hard to recruit teachers because of a shortage of key personnel and because of low pay.

"So, we have this really self-perpetuating crisis that we're going to have to interrupt with an infusion of funds to make the conditions better for the people who are currently there," Fuxa said.

Large class sizes, adverse childhood experiences and high food insecurity are other critical needs that must be addressed, Fuxa said, and teachers need "wrap-around support" and help with what she called "teacher trauma."

She said Oklahoma has to "absolutely address pay," and not pretend it's not a factor — both for those who leave and those who might want to teach as an occupation.

"When you ask young people or high school kids, 'Would you consider teaching?' — pay is usually what they say for a deterrent against entering the profession," Fuxa said.

She said according to the Economic Policy Institute, Oklahoma has a 32% gap between what teachers and other professionals with a bachelor's degree are paid.

"That's not sustainable," Fuxa said.