TULSA — After 24 years of service with the Tulsa Public School District, Dr. Ebony Johnson has experience as a teacher, a principal, and administrator.

She now takes on the role of interim superintendent, after her predecessor was essentially forced to resign under pressure from the state superintendent.

[Hear the KRMG In-Depth Report on Dr. Ebony Johnson HERE]

In only her second week in her new job, she’s going to take her plans to address some of the state superintendent’s concerns to the State Board of Education.

That meeting is scheduled for Thursday.

Dr. Johnson tells KRMG those concerns lie in three primary areas: “Professional development around the science of reading, corrective action plans for the schools that have not demonstrated the amount of progress that we would want them to have demonstrated, and then the internal controls for how we operate with our finances.”

The good news, she says, is that the district was already aware of the challenges it faces, and was working to rectify those concerns before the state superintendent got involved.

“We acknowledge that there is work to be done,” she told KRMG Tuesday. “We are not shying away from it. We understand the complexities around the challenges, the beautiful challenges that we have before us. But we’re up for it, and I stand strong behind our teachers and our leaders, our team members, our counselors. We know that the work is, it’s great, it’s in front of us, it’s gonna be difficult. But we’re up for it, and we have been.”

She says that thus far, her interactions with the state superintendent have been cordial, and cooperative.

“I have had a couple of levels of communication and correspondence and meetings, and in each of those interactions it’s been a collaborative level of interaction from our superintendent, our state superintendent, with us,” she told KRMG.

She said she also met with his Chief Academic Officer Tuesday to discuss literacy.