The Norman Transcript
Julianna Parker

K20 Center for Educational and Community Renewal opened the doors of its new facility in a ceremony 2 p.m. Thursday followed by an open house.

"I think everyone here feels a real and true sense of excitement here today," said Glen D. Johnson, chancellor of Oklahoma higher education.

Nearly 200 packed into the lobby of Two Partners Place, 3100 Monitor Ave. on the University of Oklahoma's research campus, for the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Dr. Mary John O'Hair, director of K20 Center, opened the event. She said the center prepares students in Oklahoma to be better citizens. It also helps develop a skilled workforce that can compete and collaborate globally, she said.

K20 Center started in 1996 when OU established Oklahoma Networks of Excellence to improve student learning by connecting K-12 schools across the state with each other and with OU faculty.

"We're celebrating in our centennial year the real marriage of education in our state," said State Superintendent Sandy Garrett, who spoke at the ceremony Thursday.

The center serves as a conduit between university researchers and over 500 schools in Oklahoma. It's funded partially by the university and through external grants, according to information provided by the center.

Superintendents, principals, community leaders, teachers and students are all targeted when the center works with a school.

And the results speak for themselves.

For the past three years, schools that work with K20 have consistently scored higher on the state's Academic Performance Index than the state's average. In 2006, schools participating in K20's whole school learning phase scored 217 percent higher on the API than the state's average, according to information provided by the center.

"This is a celebration of a partnership in K-12 and higher education," OU President David Boren said at the ceremony Thursday.

He has seen first-hand the benefits of interfacing the two, he said at the ceremony.

Last weekend, he attended his high school reunion in Seminole where he realized many of his classmates went on to distinguished careers, despite their small-town roots.

"I began to try to think about how did these things happen?" Boren said.

In the end, he said he realized the town of Seminole owed it all to former governor William Murray. In the 1930s, Murray fired all the state's university presidents for not voting for him, sending University of Central Oklahoma President John G. Mitchell looking for a new job.

Mitchell landed as superintendent at Seminole and brought 11 UCO faculty members with him. They formed the core of Seminole's school district for more than 20 years, Boren said.

At the time, he and his classmates didn't realize it, but they benefited enormously from this expert teaching staff, Boren said.

"What the K20 Center is, it is bringing ... that expertise and being able to connect it through the K20 Center to Oklahoma in a remarkable way," he said.

Boren said he told Seminole's story to his students Thursday morning. One National Merit scholar made the observation that even if someone has extraordinary potential inside them, that potential may never be realized, Boren said.

Students need something to unlock that potential, Boren said.

"Education is something that opens doors for students and turns on lights," Johnson said in his comments later.

In Oklahoma's Centennial year, it's important to look back and see how education and educators have shaped the state's history, he said.

"Those involved in education can really write the script for the future of our state," he said.