Jim Putnam
Elections and appointments
Personal
Contact
Jim Putnam ran for election to the Edmond Public Schools school board to represent District 5 in Oklahoma. He lost in the general election on April 1, 2025.
Putnam completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Jim Putnam was born in Portland, Oregon. He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1968 to 2000. He graduated from Parkrose Senior High School. He earned a bachelor's degree from the United States Air Force Academy in 1972, a graduate degree from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 1980, and a graduate degree from Defense Systems Management College in 1993. His career experience includes working as a military officer and for Northrop Grumman.[1]
Putnam has been affiliated with the following organizations:Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name
- Air and Space Forces Association
- Experimental Aircraft Association
- Association of Graduates of the U.S. Air Force Academy
- Commissioner for the Oklahoma Department of Aerospace and Aeronautics
- Oklahoma Pilots' Association
- Oklahoma City Gun Club
- Quiet Birdmen
Elections
2025
See also: Edmond Public Schools, Oklahoma, elections (2025)
General election
Nonpartisan primary election
The primary election was canceled. Incumbent Marcus Jones and Jim Putnam advanced from the primary for Edmond Public Schools school board, District 5.
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Putnam in this election.
2025
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Jim Putnam completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Putnam's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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● Served 32 years in the Air Force – all in leadership positions
o Last Assignment: Tinker AFB, Retired at rank of Colonel as the Base Inspector General
● Worked 14 years for Northrop Grumman as project and program manager – again all in leadership positions
● Active in the community
o Boy Scout Adult leader for 18 years - taught seven merit badges
o Senior member of the New Covenant Church and leader of three different committees in the past
o Past Vice President of the Air and Space Force Association at the local chapter and Oklahoma State levels since 1995
o Commissioner for the Oklahoma Department of Aerospace and Aeronautics for seven years.
o Member of the Oklahoma Pilots Association
o President for 17 years of the Experimental Aviation Association (EAA)
o Have personally flown over 500 kids in the EAA Young Eagles program
o Senior Member Oklahoma City Gun Club
● Education and teaching experience
o Graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy with degree in Civil Engineering
o Two master’s Degrees - Aviation Mgt from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and one in Acquisition Mgt. from Defense Systems Management College
o Taught a collegiate level for 3 ½ years at Air University, Maxwell AFB
● Jim was married for 44 years and has two sons.
o One is a Lieutenant Colonel squadron commander and a C-17 aircraft commander in the Air Force and the other was an industrial safety engineer for the State of Oklahoma.
His first wife, Linda, passed away from cancer in January 2018. - According to Education Week, “Our latest survey shows that even though teachers understand the premium value of strong family and home support for learning, they find themselves getting discouraged by the lack of family support and engagement.”
Col. Jim’s Solution:
● Facilitate and encourage parental authority and involvement in all aspects of their child’s educational experience - engage immediately when a student starts to fall behind.
● Pursue mutually beneficial communication pathways between parents, teaching staff, school administration, and students, emphasizing complete transparency
● Ensure a strong parental voice in curriculum, scheduling, activities, and discipline. - “Teachers are leaving the profession at increasingly high rates, primarily due to low pay, a lack of support, and worsening student behavior. Schools are paying the price through costly recruitment, staff shortages, destabilized school cultures, and poor learning outcomes.” Administrative staff in America has increased by 88% since 2000, while students and teachers have increased by only 8% over the same period.
Col. Jim’s Solution:
● Create and reinforce an environment conducive to better teacher retention and job satisfaction
● Provide “upper end” market Pay & Benefits for top performing teachers
● Reduce or remove as much administrative overhead burden on teachers as possible
● Focus on school principals supporting teachers.
- Over the last two years there has been an average decrease of 18.67% in Edmond District Statewide Performance – a dramatic drop in reading and math scores.
Col. Jim’s Solution:
● Create and support an environment conducive to learning, critical skill development, and personal growth - seek input from teachers about what they need most
● Provide appropriate resources and support (facilities, staffing, curriculum, etc.)
● Renew focus on the basics (reading, writing, arithmetic, American History)
● Eliminate all social engineering curricula - leave politics outside in the public sector
● Provide an opportunity to exceed and foster excellence - public recognition for excellent students or results
● Provide positive, disciplined classrooms
Many students are graduating without the critical skills, knowledge, and support systems required to thrive in higher education, the workplace, or other post-secondary opportunities.
● Make every effort to identify, assist, mentor, and give extra instruction to those who fall behind. Show those behind how to improve, catch up, and thrive. Parental involvement is key.
● Prepare students to thrive in the community and in supporting shared community values -focus on the virtues of honesty, hard work, helping others and citizenship
● Provide a path of success based on student’s passions, whether it be the trades, business or higher-ed. Connect students with local trades, businesses, or colleges as a way to orient them into adult careers I look up to inspiring leaders who have high standards. In my military career I read about great military leaders. I greatly admire the character and courage of Presidents like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan.
I would recommend three books: Things that Matter by Charles Krauthammer, The Thomas Sowell Reader by Thomas Sowell and Lincoln Talks, An Oral Biography by Emanual Hertz.
Integrity is the most important characteristic. Strive to be fair and honest and not chase popularity.
I believe my extensive leadership experience will have direct application. Ordinarily, in an Air Force career, an officer gets to command a squadron once. I did so four times. Twice I took my squadrons to be the best in Tactical Air Command (second best in the Air Force) and I finished my career by taking the Tinker Air Force Base Inspector General's office to be the best in Material Command (and again second best in the Air Force - dang!) Leadership is simply inspiring people to work toward goals or to perform the mission and then rewarding them in public when they do well and correcting them in private when they fall short. You lead people, you manage things.
The core responsibilities are laid out in Oklahoma law, Title 70-5-106 which designates the school board: "is the governing board of the district and hires and directs the superintendent who shall perform duties as the board directs." To effectively direct the school district and the superintendent and subordinate officials, a board member must become familiar with all aspects of the district and work cooperatively with the other board members to discern problems and work aggressively to fix them. A board member must be conversant with all aspects of the operation of the district, or know who to call on to get the information needed. Board member also need to be sensitive to the inputs and concerns of parents and teachers and support them whenever possible.
That our school board helped improve student performance throughout the district.
I remember the debates between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy in 1960. I was 11 at the time.
I was a paperboy during my 8th grade. I worked in a grocery store grades 11 and 12.
There are so many! I have a personal collection of over 1000 books and keep a stack on ones to read on my desk. I love the Pulitzer prize author Rick Atkinson, along with William Manchester, Stephen Ambrose, Tom Clancy, and many types of military or historical biographies.
Brigadier General Savage from the book "12 O'clock High."
They change several times a day.
My father divorced my mother when I was 11 years old. We had four kids raised by a single mother. I missed growing up without a dad, but I had uncles and fathers of friends who filled in.
Oklahoma law lays responsibility for everything in the district at the feet of the school board. A board member's job is to set policy, hire and fire the superintendent(s) and monitor the performance of the school district. When problems arise, the board through the superintendent must effectively address them and have a policy and process in place to mitigate ore prevent them from happening in the future.
The parents, the teachers, and the staff of the schools.
Hire highly experienced and qualified leaders to meet those diverse needs. The principal of a marginal elementary school will need a different approach from one who is running a blue ribbon high school. Seek feedback from the teachers and school leaders about what can and needs to be done better. Each school is unique and needs insightful, inspiring leadership to get the best out of the teachers and the students. Equally important is the relationship with the parents, who need to be connected to the progress of their children and aware of their needs.
The Edmond School district has over 25,000 students and over 2300 employees and is the largest employer in the city. It all ready is deeply embedded in the community, so it needs to continuously reach out and connect with all aspects of the city. The superintendent and senior staff should be on a first name basis with the fire and police chiefs and have a strong working relationships with their departments. Likewise, the board needs to be aware of the activity of the city council and know the members of the council and the mayor. Civic organizations like the Chamber of Commerce, Kiwanis, Rotary, charity organizations and similar service oriented groups need to also be part of the mix that is familiar with the schools and have a reciprocal relationship with the district. Students need to be aware of these aspects of their city and what they do and should be either involved in or at least aware of youth organizations like the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Future Farmers of America, YMCA, the local library, and youth sports organizations. Counselors at every school should be able to connect and call on any of these types of community members. Community connections are vital to the success of the school district and its students.
Good teaching is letting the teacher innovate in ways that motivates his/her class. Teach teamwork and have modest competition to motivate students. Student eager to learn do well and their grades should reflect that. Advanced teaching approaches often are experimental. If a teacher wishes to use a non-traditional approach, the parents need to be informed, and give their consent, and the administration needs to monitor the success or failure of the new approach.
Our society seems to be focused on everyone going to college when many students are not interested or not ready for college rigor. We used to have wood shop and metal shop, and some schools had auto mechanics and auto body shops. Students learned about tools, working with their hands and doing mechanical tasks safely. As an honor student in high school I enjoyed my three years of wood shop and learned skills that last a lifetime. We need to make available vocational and technical training as some point in high school. We need to show a path to adulthood success for students whether that be in the trades, business or in college.
Our schools are adequately funded now. In Oklahoma the average expenditure per student is over $13,000 per year. An average private school charges $9000 per year of high school. The Edmond School District is one of the best funded in the state. We need to carefully examine where the money is being spent. Nationally, since the year 2000 there has been an 88% increase in the number of administrators and only an 8% increase in the number of teachers. Let's work on swapping that trend around.
Parents entrust us with the safety of their children. School teachers and staff must be responsible for all aspects of school safety - from fire, to tornado, to severe weather, to traffic, to sports, safety must be the first priority. I would like to see a school resource officer (armed law enforcement) in every school.
Mental health is like physical health in that it is the responsibility of the individual adult or of the parent of the child. Mental health issues needed to be addressed by a mental health professional. If a student or adult needs help, the staff can offer suggested referrals, but diagnosis and treatment are not the responsibility of the school or its staff. For example, when I broke my arm in the third grade, the school called my parents who took me to the doctor. The school did not diagnose nor treat my broken arm. It should be the same with mental health.
Let's do a strong focus on our lowest performing schools with an assistance team to look into the staff, leaders, teachers, parental support and classroom environment. Focus on short term fixes with plan started for long term fixes for things like facilities. Most of the time dedicated and motivated leadership will go a long way in improving the performance of our low performing schools.
Let's examine how much federal money the district accepts and what the administrative cost is for those federal dollars. Let's examine that 88% increase in administrators since the year 2000 and see if we can't reduce that number somehow. Money spent on admin is money lost for teachers.
Mostly parents and voters thus far, and I have gratified to have see the level of response.
That would be a classroom free of distractions and bad behavior, with well disciplined and behaved students who are eager to learn and do well. The teacher sets the tone and the principal and staff back up the teacher with facilities, and support and avoid micro-managing.
Nationally the schools were handled very badly during the coronavirus outbreak and Edmond was no different. Nationally we have learned that school children were in the very lowest risk category, that the experimental vaccines didn't work and in some cases were harmful to healthy children and adults and that masks were ineffective against viruses. The real harm was that those we looked upon as health experts at the national level were wrong and discredited. Correspondingly many have lost faith and trust in the National Health Service and the Center for Disease control.
What was known at the time was that elderly citizens with two or more comorbidities were the population at risk, with healthy children facing little to no risk at all. Yet we treated all like we were carriers of the black plague and needed to be quarantined.
The approach should have been to explain the known, very low risk to the parents and let them decide if they wanted their child to miss school. We now know that schools did not need to be closed with the attendant loss of learning at all grade levels while the schools were closed. Invite them to school open houses, teacher conferences, board meetings, PTO meetings and sporting events. Have the board members active and visible at these events and interesting in meeting and listening to parents.
To recruit quality employees, you have to have a quality place to work and supportive people. You have to seek out the most highly qualified and highly recommended applicants and do careful screening and interviews. There are no shortage of on-line recruiting websites. The key aspects are direct personal contact prior to hiring, during the orientation, and then following up on the new hire's performance to work out any problems.
An honest government is open to questions, and its financial records are open to all. Any impropriety discovered by the public should be immediately reported to the state auditor for investigation. Accountability only works when someone is held accountable! Too often bureaucrats make costly decisions, or direct failures and no one is held responsible. The board need to be accountable and hold its employees accountable.
My property taxes paid directly to the Edmond School District are over $3000 a year. I'd like to be able to very clearly see where all the money is going and to what purpose.
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Other survey responses
Ballotpedia identified the following surveys, interviews, and questionnaires Putnam completed for other organizations. If you are aware of a link that should be added, email us.
See also
External links
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on March 7, 2025
