OKLAHOMA CITY — The longest-serving school board leader in Oklahoma City Public Schools’ history, credited with helping stabilize a once-turbulent district, resigned Monday evening.
Paula Lewis and her wife recently purchased a larger Oklahoma City home outside of the school district’s boundaries, which requires her to step down from office, she told Oklahoma Voice in a one-on-one interview. She served on the Oklahoma City Board of Education for a decade and led it as the at-large board chair since 2017.
Lewis, 56, cited her growing pediatric therapy business and a desire to spend more time with family as other reasons contributing to her departure.
“I’ve just added to my life over 10 years and it’s gotten big and I’m blessed with it,” Lewis said. “Now, I have to have a place that can (support) it.”
She notified fellow board members and top district administrators Monday evening of her resignation, which took effect immediately.
With Lewis less than halfway through her term, the board must call an election to fill the vacancy, according to state law. Board chair is the only position elected by voters in all parts of the Oklahoma City district. The officeholder leads each board meeting and sets the agendas.
The board’s District 6 position is up for election in February, indicating that date as a financially and logistically feasible option for a board chair special election.
State law allows the board to choose an appointee to fill the seat until a new chair is elected. Another possible option, under state law and board policy, is permitting the vice chair to lead the board until a new chair is elected.
Vice Chair Lori Bowman said the board will decide how to proceed at its next regularly scheduled meeting Aug. 17.
Bowman said she would be interested in running to succeed Lewis as board chair once an election is called.
“It’s been an absolute privilege to work alongside her, and I’ve learned a lot by watching her and working with her,” Bowman said. “I just think that she has always kept kids and our students at the forefront of everything that she’s done, and it’s a great lesson in leadership.”
Superintendent Jamie Polk echoed that “Paula has kept one question at the center of her work: What is best for our students?”
“Working alongside her, I have seen her commitment to public education and to creating safe, equitable and high-quality learning environments across our district,” Polk said. “I am grateful for her leadership and partnership.”
Lewis ‘helped usher in stability’ in OKCPS
Lewis’ younger son, Reign, was in pre-K when she first ran for the school board’s District 4 position in 2016. Next month, he’ll start his sophomore year at Classen High School of Advanced Studies at Northeast, where he’ll stay enrolled after moving.
Her older son, Hunter, now married with a child, was Lewis’ first inspiration to run for office, she said. He was in middle school at the time and was beginning to struggle with his mental health, she said.
Lewis, an occupational therapist, wanted to advocate for better mental health support for OKCPS students like Hunter, but once she was elected, she stepped onto a school board that was in “constant conflict.”
Tense, disorganized board meetings would last several hours, she said. Members of the community frequently came to yell and protest. The district superintendent’s office had been a revolving door for years.
The board’s chaos too often made front-page headlines, suffocating any positive news from coming out of the district, Lewis said.
After a year in office, she successfully ran for board chair on a promise to deliver stability and better communication from top leadership.
“You can’t drive student achievement unless you have a stable environment, and prior to Paula being board chair … we did not have stability,” said state Sen. Mark Mann, who served with Lewis on the board for seven years. “The district was in turmoil consistently for years. I think that would be her mark, is that she helped usher in stability in the district.”
The board then went on to hire Sean McDaniel as the district superintendent in 2018. He would become one of the longest-tenured OKCPS superintendents in three decades until his departure in 2024 — a period in which he and the board led the district through the COVID-19 pandemic and massive school consolidations.
The 2019 consolidation plan, which closed 15 underutilized schools and reconfigured 17 more, caused “hard feelings” in parts of the Oklahoma City community, Lewis said.
The plan also offered benefits, like every remaining elementary school being staffed with a counselor, nurse, art teacher and physical education program, she said. But for some, frustration over beloved schools shutting down overshadowed the trade-ups.
“The positives don’t make up for a hurt feeling, and I don’t know that we did enough to acknowledge the pain that we caused,” Lewis said.
Trust among voters, though, was strong by 2022 when they approved a $955 million bond issue for facility upgrades in OKCPS.
Two decades before, public trust in the school system was too low for the district to pass bond issues on its own, Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt said. That’s why OKCPS in 2001 had to rely on a city government sales tax initiative, known as MAPS for Kids, to improve school infrastructure.
“Many leaders inside and outside of the district have been a part of changing that trajectory since 2001, but Paula has been at the helm of the board now for nearly a decade, so she certainly deserves a lot of the credit,” Holt said.
McDaniel’s relationship with the board, though, declined beyond repair by 2024, leading to his resignation. He cited “irreconcilable” differences with an unnamed board member.
The board chose to promote Polk from within McDaniel’s administration to succeed the departing superintendent.
Lewis said she considered leaving the board in 2024 at the end of her second board chair term, but instead chose to run for reelection to maintain continuity through the leadership transition. She defeated two challengers by capturing more than 50% of the vote in a February 2025 election.
Now is “about as good a time as you could get” to step away, Lewis said. Polk is entering her third school year as superintendent, and the board has an experienced vice chair in Bowman.
Although Lewis plans to stay active as a community volunteer, she said she has no plans to run for another elected office, at least not until her younger son finishes high school.
She’ll have more time to spend with family and to focus on her business without having to dedicate 12 to 20 hours each week on board chair duties.
“For me, it’s been a great journey,” she said. “Will there be things I miss? Probably. Am I excited for the next chapter? One hundred percent. Do I believe that the board is in a good place, a better place than it started when I got there? Yes, I do.”
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