TPS and Tulsa Tech partner up to turn Central High into a career-focused polytechnic school next year

Central High School is soon to become a polytechnic high school in an expanded partnership with Tulsa Tech beginning next school year. 

The new application-based partnership will incorporate CareerTech programming into Central’s offerings for juniors and seniors, including health and emergency services or automotive skills. It’s set to be the first high school of its kind developed between a public district and CareerTech Oklahoma. Administrators from Tulsa Public Schools and Tulsa Tech made the announcement Monday morning.

“The addition of a polytechnic high school will offer young people an opportunity to receive career and technical training that improves access to high demand, high skill and high wage jobs. And they get that for free,” Superintendent Ebony Johnson said at a news conference Monday. 

In September, TPS raised the possibility that Central would become an alternative education, career and technology hub as part of its ongoing district consolidation, including a recommendation to close 17 school sites. 

Currently TPS students must apply for Tulsa Tech programs as sophomores to begin courses as upperclassmen. That will continue under the new partnership. This year’s Central students will have first dibs to information and applications for the new offerings, Johnson said.  

The district is still working out the details on how athletics or fine arts programs may change, though students at the campus will still have access to core subject areas and academic offerings that meet the state’s graduation requirements. 

TPS student interest in Tulsa Tech programs has been growing at the district. Enrollment increased from 544 TPS students to 663 this year, according to a September news release. The new partnership is expected to decrease the program’s waitlist, according to the district. 

“We have students that are already, right now, this morning, in Tulsa Tech programs and they are thriving,” Johnson said to reporters Monday. “And then to have Tulsa Tech to be willing to work more closely with us, to open up even more seats and opportunities for our students to be participatory in tech — we know that it’s life-changing for our young people.”

The district plans to utilize funds from its 2026 bond package to prepare Central’s facilities for the new courses, Johnson said, but the effort will involve cost-sharing with Tulsa Tech. While the partnership is set to launch next school year, more programming will be incrementally added through the 2028-29 school year. 

“We appreciate the focus that Tulsa Public Schools has on our mission, educating people for success in the workplace,” Tulsa Tech Superintendent and CEO Steve Tiger said Monday. “And that’s what we are focused on continuing to do with Tulsa Public Schools.”

Tulsa Tech originated as a part of TPS, later becoming an independent district in 1973. It is now the largest center in the state’s CareerTech system. It currently operates six campuses in the Tulsa metro and 23 high school extension programs in the county. 

“So we are looking as an organization, how can we serve more students? How can we serve them better?” Tiger said. “And this is an example of that.”

Monday’s announcement comes two weeks before the TPS board’s scheduled vote on district consolidation plans, which includes proposed changes to Central High. 

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