(Oklahoma) First Drag Queen Now Secretly Trans Principal: Progressive Public Ed in America's Reddest State
OK's Drag Queen District Strikes Again: School Administrators, Unions & Media Keep Parents in Dark About Another Principal's Identity
Oklahoma, a mostly rural place with just four (4) million residents, is the only US state in which all of its counties (77) voted red during the November 2024 presidential election. Despite the state’s populous being overwhelmingly conservative, Oklahoma’s progressive and increasingly non-transparent public education system is largely out of step with the families it serves.
This ideological divide, along with the emergence of Ryan Walters (R) as Oklahoma’s State Superintendent, has placed Oklahoma at the epicenter of a national conversation about America’s failing public education juggernaut. Walters’ 2022 campaign promise to end “wokeness” in Oklahoma’s public schools caused voters to elect him by a 13-point spread. The people spoke, and it wasn’t in favor of progressivism in schools.
At its heart, this disagreement is about transparency, a parent’s right to know who’s spending time with their children and what they are being taught. One Oklahoma school district with a history of concealing important information about its staff members continues to keep parents in the dark. And if it’s happening in deep red Oklahoma, there’s a very good chance it’s happening in your child’s school, wherever you reside.
Same Oklahoma District That Knowingly Hired Drag Queen ES Principal with Previous Child Porn Charge Promotes Secretly Trans Teacher to MS Principal
On August 29, 2023, V1SUT broke the story of Dr. Shane Murnan, elementary school principal by day and drag queen Shantel Mandalay by night. Despite previously being arrested on child porn charges while teaching 5th grade in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Murnan continued to be employed and promoted within Oklahoma’s public schools (link to full story).
Western Heights Public Schools (WHPS) knowingly hired Murnan as a principal despite the child porn charge, which was dismissed on a technicality after the court confirmed images of child porn were found on his devices.
WHPS administration was also aware of Murnan’s ongoing employment as a drag queen at The Boom, a local drag bar in Oklahoma City, at the time of his hiring. Murnan hired co-workers from The Boom to work alongside him at elementary schools in both WHPS and Oklahoma City Public Schools (OKCPS).
Hao Jiang, a Chinese immigrant hired by Murnan at three different elementary schools, was caught by Oklahoma Predator Prevention, a grassroots, undercover sting operation, soliciting what he believed was a 15-year-old boy.
For months, the district’s superintendent, Dr. Brayden Savage, sided with Murnan and fought with then newly elected State Superintendent Ryan Walters (R) who was publicly calling for Murnan to be terminated.
Despite a packed school board meeting questioning the hire, the district’s elected school board refused to terminate Murnan or question Savage’s hiring practices. Since then, the Oklahoma State School Boards Association (OSSBA), a union-like non-profit that trains local school board members to work for superintendents and not the parents who elected them, presented WHPS Board President Briana Flatley with the 2024 All-State School Board Award.
Murnan was eventually terminated amid a national wave of negative publicity. Since the scandal, the Payne County District Court has expunged Murnan’s previous criminal charges, including a drug conviction and any record of his child porn charge. Murnan’s teaching certifications through the OSDE remain current.
In the absence of repercussions, WHPS’s administration and board of education appear to have learned little about the importance of transparency in public education from the drag queen debacle. For the past eight years, WHPS administrators have allowed a biologically female middle school teacher to present convincingly to students and parents as a man. And now, that individual has been promoted to middle school principal.
V1SUT wishes to stress that this new principal has not been charged with or, to our knowledge, accused of any crime against a child or student. However, the concealment of this individual’s biological gender raises serious questions about district leadership’s hiring practices, motivations and adherence to state law, as well as the rights of WHPS parents to be fully informed about anyone working under public funds with access to or influence over their children.
From Female Prison Guard to “Male” Teacher in 6 Months: District Knowingly Hires Uncertified Trans Teacher Weeks After Legal Name Change
During late 2015, now Superintendent Savage, then personnel officer for WHPS, hired Camron Brix Baker (now 38) as an emergency certified, middle school teacher.
Though convincingly presenting as a male, Baker is a biological female formerly known as Robin Desarae Baker. Baker was raised in central Oklahoma and graduated from Moore Public Schools, one of the state’s largest districts, in 2004.
Baker appears to have started living as a male during military service after filing to end her first same-sex marriage in 2014. Public court records show Robin Desarae Baker requested to legally change her name to Camron Brix Baker on October 21, 2015, stating “I am transgender” on the petition.
The legal change was in name only, as Oklahoma law does not allow its courts to grant gender marker modifications or non-binary designations.
At the time of the name change, Baker was working for the State of Oklahoma as a correctional security officer. Public records related to her employment at that time are available under both names. These dual records, as well as multiple records within Oklahoma’s court system, do not connect as representing one person, an ongoing complication when vetting an increasing number of “trans” applicants seeking to work with youth.
Just weeks after the Oklahoma County District Court granted Baker’s name change (Nov. 20, 2015), Baker, presenting as a male, made a significant career change by going to work for WHPS as an emergency certified, English language arts (ELA) teacher.
Both the required background check process and inside sources indicate WHPS administration was aware Baker was a biological female at the time of hire and allowed Baker to present only as a male to students, parents and co-workers.
Baker, who entered a second same-sex marriage during 2016 (divorce now pending), is known only as a male, married father of two to WHPS students and parents. Baker has taught ELA, health/PE and served as an emergency certified counselor at WHMS over the past eight years.
During the 2023-24 school year, inside sources report Baker unofficially began functioning as head principal at WHMS after the previous principal, Michael Hawkins, was promoted to a district level, IT position, though no announcement of Baker’s promotion was ever made. Currently, though listed as assistant principal, Baker is the only administrator identified on the district's website as serving at the middle school.
Since being hired by WHPS, Baker has earned standard certification in ELA and has added alternative principal’s certifications at the elementary and secondary levels through the OSDE.
Court records from October of 2018 show Camron Baker also received minister’s credentials from the Universal Life Church, an online source for ordination, allowing Baker to legally marry couples.
Oklahoma District Quietly Side-Steps State Law About Schools, Genders & Bathrooms: Do Parents Have a Right to Know Their Principal is Not a Biological Male?
The battle over gender ideology could not be more binary. As many states are legislating protections of student spaces based on biology, the NEA and other education organizations continue to put LGBT activists and educators in control of policy to the exclusion of parents.
Training tools such as the video Five Best Practices to Support and Learn from Trans Educators, as promoted by Education Week, put trans educators in the driver’s seat concerning transparency, with parents completely omitted from the conversation.
Under Oklahoma state law, multiple occupancy restrooms or changing areas in schools must be designated as “for the exclusive use of the male Sex or for the exclusive use of the female Sex”.
The law further states “any student, teacher, staff member, or other person on the premises of a School” must only utilize those areas aligning with their biological sex, which is defined as “the physical condition of being male or female based on genetics and physiology, as identified on the individual's original birth certificate”. Single-use bathrooms can be designated for use by either gender but identifying as transgender does not give access to group facilities in Oklahoma’s schools.
Compliance to the law is monitored by each district’s OSDE assigned Regional Accreditation Officer (RAO). However, it is unclear how an RAO would know if districts like WHPS are concealing the biological sex of staff members like Baker.
V1SUT reached out to State Superintendent Ryan Walters (R) and OSDE Director of Communications Dan Isett to ask if teaching while “trans” was allowed, if any district had ever informed the OSDE of a staff member who was cross-dressing or presenting as “trans” during the school day, and if districts are allowed to conceal the biological gender of staff members from parents/guardians.
We also reached out to WHPS Superintendent Brayden Savage and asked about the district’s policies concerning “trans” staff and whether parents are informed when staff present outside of their biological sex during school hours.
Lastly, V1SUT reached out to Camron Baker to ask questions about Baker’s roles at WHPS and open a dialogue about his experiences as a transgender educator.
It seems no one wants to comment about trans-teachers working in Oklahoma classrooms. As of publication, neither Walters, Isett, Savage nor Baker was willing to comment or answer any of our questions.
Covid Co-Opting: Local Media & Teachers’ Union Praised WHPS’s Secretly Trans Teacher for Dancing as Students Failed Alone from Home in Push to Keep Schools Closed
During the spring of 2021, as WHPS students moved into a second year of being locked out of schools during Covid, Baker was granted multiple spotlight moments by the local press and the Oklahoma Education Association (OEA), the state teachers’ union and affiliate of the National Education Association (NEA). At the time, both the district and the OEA were fighting to continue distance learning while the local, legacy media supported their efforts.
WHPS’s accreditation had just been placed on probation by the Oklahoma State Board of Education (OSBE) for gross underperformance and a host of other concerns. The district responded by unsuccessfully suing the OSBE and the OSDE.
As if on cue, Oklahoma’s CBS affiliates highlighted Baker out of over 40,000 public school teachers in the state for “trying to figure out a way to better connect with his students midway through an all-virtual school year at Western Heights Middle School”.
On March 29, 2021, KWTV featured Baker for maintaining virtual connections with “his” students by showing them a new dance step each day. The news clip depicts Baker and other WHMS teachers performing a choregraphed dance close together in a hallway at the school as students remained isolated at home staring at computer screens (access video).
In the article, Baker states, “The smiles on their faces, the communication, the support they gave me, it was impactful. I think it has bridged a gap we have virtually."
Danny Cabaniss, another ELA teacher at WHMS told KWTV, “We can connect with our students, even though we’re virtual, but it takes the ingenuity."
OSDE data shows only 5% of WHMS students are proficient in ELA. Baker and Cabaniss have been responsible for ELA learning for WHMS students for years and both continue to work at the school.
A week later, with Covid vaccination clinic information scrolling below, KWTV made Baker their T-Mobile Teacher of the Day. The OEA was quick to further promote the reporting on social media, stating, “Break it down, Mr. Baker!”
The OEA continued to release surveys of teachers highlighting the continued hardships of having kids at school, and WHPS was the last Oklahoma school district to return to in-person learning.
On April 21, 2021, the district allowed fully masked students to return to school just two days per week and provided only ten (10) days of in-person instruction during the entire 2020-21 school year.
For Both District & Trans Teacher, Academic Results for Students are Dismal: Are Federal Funds Partially to Blame?
Since Baker began teaching ELA at WHMS, the percentage of students testing as proficient in that subject area has dropped by more than half. Available data from the OSDE shows an ELA proficiency rate of 12% among WHMS students in 2017-18, which dropped to only 5% of students by 2022-23 (most recent data).
As a district, WHPS annually spends 28% more per pupil than the state average (2022-23) yet has one of the lowest academic achievement scores in the state.
The school and district are chronically among the state’s lowest academic performers. WHPS is currently among only four of the state’s 546 districts whose accreditation with the OSDE is on a probationary status, the lowest level before accreditation is no longer recommended and funding is removed.
State data for 2022-23 shows four (4) of the district’s eight (8) school sites were designated as Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) sites, a label for the state’s lowest performing schools that brings additional federal funding and intervention through the OSDE.
The influx of federal funding appears to be adding more to administration and structure and less to classroom learning. In 2022-23, most (61.2%) of the federal money received by the district funded non-instructional expenditures outside of the classroom.
Oklahoma’s Lawton PS Also Hid Teacher/Coach’s Female Gender: Arrest for Student Molestation Revealed Truth
While this publication wishes to again stress that it is not aware of any reports of criminal behavior associated with Baker, V1SUT’s recent reporting concerning Lawton PS illustrates the importance of full transparency concerning the gender and backgrounds of those working with children in schools.
In May of 2024, a V1SUT article revealed Nicko Deocampo Miranda (43), a computer teacher and girls volleyball coach at Eisenhower High School (EHS) in Lawton, Oklahoma, known only as a married male to parents, was arrested for the felony sexual battery of a student.
Despite local and national outlets reporting Miranda as the male coach arrested, Miranda was held within the women’s area of the Comanche County Detention Center. Unbeknownst to EHS parents, Miranda, an army veteran and Lawton PS’s 2022-23 Rookie Teacher of the Year, is a biological female.
Born as Misty Starr Miranda, Miranda utilized multiple iterations and combinations of names over a period of years and relocations during her military service (see previously article).
The current criminal case against Miranda does not connect her identity to other court records under her previous name or previously used aliases. Miranda initially pled not guilty to the felony charge, but on December 4, 2024, expressed to the court her intention to change that plea.
Though named by the Oklahoma Association of School Administrators (OASA/CCOSA) as 2022 Superintendent of the Year, Lawton PS Superintendent Kevin Hime refused to comment about the district’s concealment of Miranda’s biological gender from the parents/guardians of EHS students. Lawton PS is also an underperforming district with only 21% of students testing as proficient in core subject areas.
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Absolute insanity.
For all those who don't think this hasn't burrowed into their small, quiet and conservative town, they need to think again.
The radical perverts, marxists and commies figured out that they could quietly infiltrate the places people would never suspect to find them.