Kristina Stadelman sat at her dining room table, cradling her 3-day-old son. She said she was trying to focus on enjoying this moment with her baby instead of the demand letter from the Oklahoma State Department of Education laid in front of her.
Stadelman teaches special education to kindergarten through fourth-grade students in the Oklahoma City metro area. This is her fifth year in the classroom, so the department said she qualified for a $50,000 bonus, the maximum under State Superintendent Ryan Walters’ new Teacher Signing Bonus program . After taxes, about $29,000 hit her bank account in November.
With the money, her family was able to make some home improvements, place a down payment on a bigger car for their now-seven-member family and support the household while she takes time off with the baby. Then the department demanded it all back.
“I got an email … it was like the second week of January, saying I have to pay it back by the end of February,” Stadelman said. “I’m like, how am I supposed to do that?”