By Nuria Martinez-Keel, Oklahoma Voice
OKLAHOMA CITY — Lindel Fields’ path to teaching was anything but orthodox. The same could be said for his route to Oklahoma’s top education office.
Fields, of Tulsa, was a retired CareerTech leader unknown to most Oklahomans when state Superintendent Ryan Walters announced his resignation on FOX News a month ago. Walters, who had spent his time in office pursuing national media attention, said he was leaving for a nonprofit job with 33 months left in his term.
That put Gov. Kevin Stitt in the unusual position of appointing a state superintendent. He chose Fields, who is no stranger to unconventional beginnings.
A rural northeast Oklahoma native and the son of a homemaker and a welder, Fields was the first in his family to become a teacher. His first class of students were inmates at Dick Conner Correctional Center, a state prison in Hominy where he taught horticulture.
Fields, then 20, had seen the instructor job advertised in the Sunday newspaper. He was working in landscaping at the time and figured teaching was another way to put his horticulture certification to use.
“I loved it from day one,” he said in a sit-down interview with Oklahoma Voice. “I think when I interviewed I said I wanted to manage a greenhouse or a nursery later in life. But after doing it for six months, I knew this is where I’d be for my career.”
Fields, now 54, earned his horticulture certification from Tulsa Technology Center, foreshadowing his long career in other vocational training institutions.
But, going to Tulsa Tech wasn’t his idea. His father insisted he enroll while in high school.
Until then, Fields was enjoying attending Skiatook High School, where he was part of a state-championship-winning wrestling team and was a state runner-up wrestler himself.
His father, though, wanted him to learn a trade.
“He said, ‘You’re going to Tech because you’re going to get a skill that nobody can take from you,’” Fields recalled.
He ultimately loved the experience at Tulsa Tech, he said, and his certification led to his first teaching job at the prison in 1991.
Fields taught for three years at Dick Conner, where he said the inmates were challenging but respectful students, before he became a director overseeing instruction at multiple prisons.
He also started night courses at Oklahoma State University’s Tulsa campus. That led to a bachelor’s degree from OSU in trade and industrial teacher education and a master’s degree from Southern Nazarene University in educational leadership.
“Certainly, in the beginning I had a lot to learn, like all new teachers, but teaching is teaching,” Fields said. “I think it comes down to connecting with people before you can impart your skill or your knowledge.”
Relationship building became a cornerstone of Fields’ philosophy as he moved into leadership in the CareerTech system. He spent a year as an assistant director at Central Technology Center in Drumright until he joined Tri County Technology Center in Bartlesville in 1999.
Fields remained at Tri County Tech for more than two decades until his retirement in 2021, starting as an assistant superintendent and advancing in 2009 to superintendent and CEO.
Under his leadership, the organization received the nation’s highest recognition for excellent management and performance, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, and multiple “great place to work” accolades.
Bartlesville Public Schools Superintendent Chuck McCauley said he got to know Fields throughout that time as a “good person” and a “great leader” in charge of a CareerTech center that local students were eager to attend. The two have known each other since 2001 as colleagues in Bartlesville’s education sphere.
“We are never going to hear anything come out of his mouth that is going to embarrass the state of Oklahoma,” McCauley said.
When Fields was announced as the next state superintendent on Oct. 2, McCauley texted him a simple message: “Thank you.”
The Oklahoma State Department of Education had a turbulent 33 months with Walters at the helm — a period marked by significant staff losses and senior leadership turnover, heightened political rhetoric, numerous lawsuits and disarray in agency functions.
In McCauley’s words, it’s “been a trainwreck,” and the “ridiculous” rhetoric has made things difficult for public schools. Stitt tapped Fields and a team of professionals to turn the Education Department around.
“As schools, we count on that organization,” McCauley said. “I think he’s the perfect person to steady that ship.”
When announcing Fields as his appointee, Stitt said he wanted to “get politics out of that agency,” improve its transparency and refocus its leadership’s attention on education. Fields confirmed he isn’t interested in running to keep the office in the 2026 elections, which Stitt said was essential.
The task is, in part, personal for Fields. The youngest of his three children, Eva, is a fifth grader in Tulsa Public Schools. He said he shares the same hope as other Oklahoma parents that his child’s public education will prepare her for the future.
“That’s why steadying the ship matters so much right now,” he said at an introductory news conference at Eisenhower Elementary, where his daughter attends school.
Fields, whose older children are adults, pledged to focus on improving literacy rates, connecting students with future careers, and recruiting and retaining more teachers.
So far, he’s suggested continuing a Walters-era policy of funding high-dosage tutoring for students who have fallen behind in reading. His yearly budget request, which is now in the hands of the state Legislature, would dedicate $11.9 million to that initiative. His budget proposal also includes a $42.3 million spend on teacher incentives, primarily for the existing Oklahoma Teacher Empowerment Program that offers bonuses to high-performing educators.
Fields also set out to untangle the Education Department from a web of lawsuits that sought to stymie some of Walters’ most controversial policies.
To do so, Fields has reversed some of his predecessor’s priorities, such as retracting Walters’ order that public schools teach from the Bible. He also said he intends to rewrite Walters’ polarizing social studies standards, which mandated biblical teachings and other controversial content.
Walters purchased over 500 Bibles and collected donated copies to distribute to public schools.
The Education Department’s new spokesperson, Tara Thompson, said she found hundreds of these Bibles in boxes stored in the agency’s communications department.
Districts are welcome to take copies from the agency’s stack if they wish, Fields said, but he won’t force schools to place a Bible in every classroom like Walters intended. He said any unused copies could be designated as surplus property or donated.
“Bibles have long been allowed in schools,” Fields said. “That hasn’t changed. So, to the extent schools at the local level want to use those in their curriculum, I support that. Our stance is simply we’re not going to fight a lawsuit to force them.”
The difference in the new administration is already evident at the state Capitol, where Education Department staff are present and available to answer lawmakers’ questions at interim studies, said Rep. Dick Lowe, R-Amber. State legislators frequently complained of having difficulty communicating with Walters’ administration.
Lowe, a former CareerTech educator who now leads the House Common Education Committee, described Fields as a “culture builder,” which is something “we are definitely needing.” Lowe witnessed Fields’ leadership first hand when visiting Tri County Tech in 2016 while serving as president of the Oklahoma Association of Career and Technical Education.
“I knew several of his staff and they said, ‘If we have something — an idea, a thought or a change — we can always go to him,’ and the culture is there that he was willing to listen and talk through programs or ideas,” Lowe said. “That culture, it doesn’t happen by accident. There has to be a catalyst, and I think he was the great catalyst.”
Since his 2021 retirement, Fields started a consulting business to advise other organizations in culture building. Creating a world-class culture comes down to building trusting relationships and strong two-way communication, he said.
That’s why one of his top priorities as state superintendent is repairing relationships and improving the communication coming out of the Education Department, particularly with public school educators, the news media and the public at large.
The Oklahoma State Board of Education, which he leads, already appears more harmonious with Fields replacing Walters, whose relationship with the board had soured.
It remains to be seen whether the extra dose of positivity will lift Oklahoma’s poor academic performance, but Fields said he believes it will help.
Public education, from the state board to local classrooms and communities, need “to row in the same direction” for outcomes to improve, he said. Negativity will only slow that progress.
“We’re leading children,” Fields said. “We’ve got to set the expectation. If we’re not getting the results, maybe we ought to look at how we’re leading.”
