In September 2025, a claim (archived) circulated online that Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters said he would require every high school in the state to have a Turning Point USA chapter.
Turning Point is a nonprofit group that aims to build a “conservative grassroots activist network” on high school and college campuses in the U.S. The organization supports Club America chapters at high schools that allow students younger than college age to participate in the group’s activism. Charlie Kirk, the conservative commentator who was shot dead on a Utah college campus on Sept. 10, 2025, co-founded Turning Point in 2012. (The other co-founder, businessman Bill Montgomery, died in 2020.)
One X post with more than 5 million views at the time of this writing read, “BREAKING: Oklahoma State Superintendent @RyanWalters_ just announced that every single high school in the state will now be required to have a Turning Point USA chapter.”
The claim also circulated on Facebook, Threads (archived), Instagram (archived), Reddit (archived) and Bluesky (archived). Some claims did not say Walters would require schools to start Turning Point chapters, instead claiming Walters said they “will” have them.
Walters said (archived) in a Sept. 23, 2025, announcement that, through a “partnership” with Turning Point (emphasis ours), “every Oklahoma high school will have a Turning Point USA chapter.” In a Sept. 24 message to parents and guardians in the state, Walters also wrote (archived), “We will be putting TPUSA on every high school campus in Oklahoma.” However, it remained unclear whether the Oklahoma State Department of Education would require Club America chapters on high school campuses across the state.
On Sept. 23, Walters told local media in Oklahoma that there would be consequences for schools that refused to support Club America chapters on campus. The next day, the superintendent failed to directly answer a question (at 2:36) from Fox News’ Martha MacCallum about whether the chapters were “a mandate.” Walters instead said the education department had “already received requests from every school” to start new chapters, suggesting it would not be necessary to force schools to comply.
It also remained unclear how or whether Walters’ resignation, announced the day after his Turning Point/Club America announcement, would affect the planned “partnership.”
We reached out to Turning Point and Walters to confirm whether the organization had received the number of requests for new chapters that Walters claimed and to establish whether Walters’ Sept. 23 announcement amounted to a requirement, as some online claims said. We await replies to our queries.
On Sept. 23, Walters appeared to indicate that he was willing to put the force of the education department behind his plan.
During an interview, Paige Taylor, a reporter for the Fox-affiliated channel KOKH, asked (at 1:14), “Do you know what the repercussions would be at this point if someone says no, they’re not going to do this?”
Walters replied:
We would go after their accreditation, we would go after their certificates. So, yeah, they would be in danger of not being a school district if they decided to reject a club that is here to promote civic engagement, absolutely, they would be violating the law, they would be violating the rules set forth to them by our agency. So, yeah, everything would be on the table in that scenario.
As Walters was still promoting his plan to open Club America chapters in all Oklahoma high schools, he also announced (archived) on Sept. 24, 2025, that he was leaving his post as state superintendent to lead (archived) the Teacher Freedom Alliance, a nonprofit group of teachers that marketed itself as an alternative to teaching unions.
It was unclear at the time of this writing how or whether the state education department would continue Walters’ announced “partnership” with Turning Point or enforce his warned consequences.
According to Turning Point spokesperson Andrew Kolvet, the organization had “900 official college chapters and around 1,200 high school chapters” in mid-September 2025. By Sept. 23, the organization had received more than 120,000 requests for new chapters, according (archived) to Kolvet.
Kolvet did not specify which states the requests came from or how they broke down into Turning Point (college) and Club America (high school) chapter requests.
Snopes has previously investigated a number of rumors about Ryan Walters and the Oklahoma education department, including whether Walters would roll out “anti-woke” tests for teachers moving to Oklahoma from “blue” states, whether he was caught watching adult content during a meeting and whether he included 2020 election fraud conspiracies in the state’s learning targets for high schoolers.
Sources:
“About.” Turning Point USA, https://tpusa.com/about/.
About Us | Teacher Freedom Alliance. https://www.teacherfreedomalliance.com/about-us/. Accessed 25 Sep. 2025.
“Club America – Powered by TPUSA.” Club America, https://www.clubamerica.com. Accessed 25 Sep. 2025.
KOKH – FOX 25. “State Superintendent Ryan Walters Announces His Resignation from Office.” YouTube, 25 Sep. 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBX0sofRo7w.
“Oklahoma’s State Superintendent Announces TPUSA Chapters for Every High School | Fox News Video.” MovingImage. Fox News, 24 Sep. 2025, https://www.foxnews.com/video/6380062704112.
SCHOENBAUM, HANNAH, et al. “Conservative Activist Charlie Kirk Assassinated at Utah University.” AP News, 10 Sep. 2025, https://apnews.com/article/charlie-kirk-conservative-activist-shot-546165a8151104e0938a5e085be1e8bd.
Taylor, Paige. “Supt. Walters Says He Wants a TPUSA Chapter on Every High School Campus by End of Year.” KOKH, 23 Sep. 2025, https://okcfox.com/news/local/supt-walters-says-he-wants-a-tpusa-chapter-on-every-high-school-campus-by-end-of-year-state-superintendent-ryan-walters-oklahoma-education-charlie-kirk-turning-point-usa.
