Oklahoma City School Board Names Aurora Lora Permanent Superintendent

Friday morning the Oklahoma City school board named interim superintendent Aurora Lora to the district’s top job permanently. She’s led the district since the April separation agreement with Superintendent Rob Neu.

Lora said shortly after the vote she wasn’t surprised by the board’s decision, and plans to work with the community through a series of focus groups to make sure their voices are heard.

“It’ll be a yearlong advisory committee, and we’ll have one for students, one for teachers, one for principals, and then we will also set up an engagement process for me to be able to regularly meet with the community and parents,” Lora told reporters.

The district says that parent advisory board will be coordinated through the district council of the PTA.

Lora said she expects additional funding cuts to Oklahoma City Public Schools beyond the $30 million hit the district took last fiscal year. That led to walk outs and forced the district to end the school year two days early.

“Some of the things that we’re going to have to look at is possibly looking at additional school closures, consolidations, possibly redistricting,” Lora said. “So it’s going to be some hard conversations, but we’re going to start that process early to figure out how we’re going to get through these tough times.”

She also said she hopes every teacher vacancy is filled by August 1, which is the first day of school.

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