Tulsa, Oklahoma: Board Votes to Move Zarrow International Into Hoover Elementary

Tulsa Public Schools is still redrawing its map. In a special meeting on Thursday, October 29, the Board of Education voted unanimously to add Hoover Elementary to the district's consolidation list and to move Henry Zarrow International School into the Hoover building next fall, the Tulsa Flyer reported. The Tulsa World reported the vote was 6 to 0, with board member Stacey Woolley absent.

The decision came ten days after the board voted to close or consolidate 17 campuses across the district for the 2027-28 school year, a plan driven by an enrollment decline of about 6,000 students over the past decade. Thursday's vote changes what happens to one of those buildings. Hoover, at 2327 S. Darlington Ave., will stay open as a school, but as the new home of a magnet program instead of a neighborhood elementary school.

Superintendent Ebony Johnson said the community had spoken clearly in weeks of sessions. She said she heard loud and clear that residents were not at all interested in the Hoover building being closed, and that families also wanted room to grow the Zarrow program. Zarrow offers specialized dual language immersion, and its waitlist stood at 186 students in July, most of them from other district schools.

What changes for families

Moving Zarrow from its current building at 3613 S. Hudson Ave. to Hoover expands the school's capacity from 516 to 638 people overall. The district hopes to add at least 65 seats in preschool and kindergarten at Zarrow. Johnson said that after consolidation the district expects 285 new seats in elementary grades and 1,170 in secondary grades, part of a push to bring more than 1,200 students into TPS through expanded magnet programs and virtual options.

Hoover's current students will be redirected to Skelly Elementary and MacArthur Elementary. A Hoover student who wants to stay in the building would need to apply to the Zarrow program. The board had already approved a similar move for Felicitas Mendez International School, which shifts to Anderson Elementary and adds at least 220 dual language seats, with priority for dual language students at closing Springdale and Sequoyah elementary schools. The old Zarrow building, next to Bishop Kelley High School and Undercroft Montessori School, will sit vacant with no plans yet for reuse. District administrators said bond funds will follow students to their new sites, with construction spending allocated by a bond oversight committee that has not yet been appointed.

Relief and unease on the same street

Hoover families, staff and neighbors had protested the site's closure for weeks, and Johnson said Thursday's proposal was partly a response to that organizing. Hoover parent Kate Cofer told the board before the meeting that closing a largely neighborhood school pushes local children out to bring in a new program, and that trust in the district is strained. She also said she was glad the building will hold a school at all, because a vacant building would hurt the neighborhood and home values.

The Zarrow move was first floated at an October 5 board meeting, where board member John Croisant asked for decisions on school moves before the October 19 consolidation vote. It was not in that final package, which he supported. For Tulsa families, the practical questions now sit with the district: application timelines for Zarrow, bus routes for redirected Hoover students, and whether more buildings on the list get a second use before the 2027-28 changes take effect.