Guthrie Public Schools had failed on nine straight bond elections before Superintendent Mike Simpson arrived more than a decade ago. That’s right—nine. But Simpson, Oklahoma’s 2024 Superintendent of the Year, just passed his third straight bond since 2014, with nearly three-quarters of the vote.
So just how has he secured three rounds of funding to meet the educational needs of a suddenly suburbanizing city 45 minutes north of Oklahoma City?
“When you drive by a school building and you see happy kids outside, you don’t understand the challenges that are going on inside,” Simpson says. “So we brought the community into the buildings. We brought the community along the way in the decision-making on what our district needed—and that has spurred a lot of the housing growth.”
Indeed, home builders in the area have reacted to the district’s efforts to upgrade and build new facilities and are planning nearly 2,000 new homes in the school system’s boundaries.
Superintendent speaks out: Staying power
Simpson, who has been Guthrie’s superintendent for 13 years, has some thoughts on longevity in a state where the average tenure for a superintendent is about three years. One key aspect of his staying power has been creating harmony with his school board by forming several committees that allow his administrators and board members to meet regularly.
“My goal is that all of our leadership team and our staff have informed our board members of the issues that are going on within the district well in advance of a board meeting,” he explains.
Simpson’s longevity appears to have rubbed off on his staff. His leadership team has been stable, though two former members are now superintendents in other districts. Administrative vacancies are often filled from within and over the past two years, several teachers who left for higher salaries in other districts returned to Guthrie schools because of the positive climate cultivated by central office and building leaders,” Simpson points out.
“At all levels, we’re small enough that we can care and know each other,” he continues. “But we’re large enough to offer a lot of things and I think that allows us to maintain that mix where we place kids first, and when you do that from the highest levels and people see that in action, they buy into it.”
Simpson’s children are students in the district and he and his wife, a counselor, try to experience school events and activities as parents. “When people see the superintendent more as a parent than as the superintendent, that humanizes things and helps us to create more of a family atmosphere,” he concludes.