Oklahoma Senate Education Plans Include Adding Potential Board Members To State Board Of Education

Senate Lawmakers released their plans for education on Wednesday. Senate leadership released several bills ahead of the upcoming legislative session. 

Jordan Fremstad found out one bill would make a change to the State Board of Education. 

Senate Bill 1395 would add four members to the board of education. Senate leaders, including the Senate Pro Tem and the House Speaker, would each choose two of those members. This would not affect the current members of the board. Republican Sen. Adam Pugh spoke about this measure at a news conference on Wednesday morning. Nearly half of the state’s budget goes toward education. It is the reason he wants lawmakers to have more of a say in the decisions made for Oklahoma schools.  

“Given that we are putting so much funding and so much of our time and effort goes into how we make those investments, we should also have a say in the rules that the state department administers and implements, and kinda driving the agenda for the state department,” Pugh said.

This measure has a long way to go. The legislative session begins on February 5. This is just one of 27 bills the Senate released on Wednesday. One bill would create the Oklahoma Teacher Recruitment Academy to address the teacher shortage. It would provide money for college for people to become teachers who also agree to teach in a community that needs them.

Another bill involves school safety and would grant permission for school districts to hire retired law enforcement officers to serve inside schools. Lawmakers also filed a bill that provides six weeks of adoption leave for qualified employees. These are some of the senate bills we will follow in this session.