The Oklahoma State Board of Education recently voted to take over operations of Western Heights Public Schools, but the district plans to name its own superintendent after the state already picked up.Shortly before the board of education announced Monty Guthrie would take over as the district's new leader, Western Heights Public Schools officials said they would announce their own superintendent during Thursday's meeting. It's a decision that State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister calls "inappropriate.""Inappropriate and continued disregard for the authority of the state board of education," Hofmeister said.She told KOCO 5 the time for Western Heights Public Schools officials to make a decision on who would replace Mannix Barnes as superintendent should have been before the end of the district's probationary period."Just an inappropriate step and would not be valid â any decisions that are made in that meeting and certainly not recognized," Hofmeister said. "They don't possess that authority right now after that decision by the state board to move for state intervention."Guthrie, who has 26 years of education experience that includes overseeing school accreditations for the state board of education, will act as the interim superintendent as well as the liaison between Western Heights Public Schools and the state during the district's one-year intervention period."He has watched and worked through these last months of seeing the community desperate for a new change, and he's really eager to get started and work together with everyone at Western Heights," Hofmeister said.The decision to take over control of the district comes a month after the board suspended Barnes' superintendent certificate and after the district's repeated failure to correct a laundry list of complaints from mishandling funds to poor performance to a reduction of staff and learning loss.Hofmeister is confident Western Heights Public Schools is back on the right track."Monty Guthrie is hyper-focused on doing what is best for kids and helping really unite the community," she said.Western Heights Public Schools will hold its meeting Thursday afternoon.