The Oklahoma State Board of Education reconvened Thursday after canceling its regular November meeting to discuss teacher certificates and hear comments from State Superintendent Ryan Walters about proposed administrative rules. Three lawmakers also attended the board’s executive session.
During the board’s December meeting, Sen. Julia Kirt (D-Oklahoma City), Rep. Dick Lowe (R-Amber), and recently elected Rep. Gabe Woolley (R-Broken Arrow) were let into the board’s approximately two-hour executive session.
This follows months of controversy beginning in June when Sen. Mary Boren (D-Norman) was denied entry to the board’s executive session. Rep. Jacob Rosecrants (D-Norman) and Rep. Mike Osburn (R-Edmond) joined her during the board’s July meeting. Rosecrants told StateImpact at the time, he and the other lawmakers were asked to make cases for why they should attend.
State law says legislators may attend executive sessions of state agencies, boards or commissions “whenever the jurisdiction of such committee includes the actions of the public body involved.”
The attorney general’s office looked into a potential Open Meeting Act violation. Attorney General Gentner Drummond issued a formal opinion on Aug. 21, saying the board must allow lawmakers in.
Lowe had also joined the board’s short executive session during a Nov. 8 special meeting.
“They were talking about some issues and some things, and so we’re able to go in, and so we went in and observed. We didn’t participate. That’s not our position,” Lowe told StateImpact on Thursday. “Our job is to observe, and that’s exactly what we did.”
At Thursday’s meeting, Walters commented on a new administrative rule proposed by OSDE that would track the number of K-12 students whose parents don’t have legal immigration status. Under it, Oklahoma schools would ask students’ parents or legal guardians to provide proof of their citizenship at enrollment.
If they can’t, the students will be counted. But, just because a parent is in Oklahoma illegally doesn’t mean their child is.
“We have to know how many illegal immigrants are in our schools so that we know how to allocate resources so that we know how to solve the issues that arise with that,” Walters said. “We will continue to move forward to ensure that we are preventing any kind of illegal immigration movement into our state and into our schools.”
It’s unclear how that would be accomplished.
According to the American Immigration Council, the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court case Plyler v. Doe holds that states cannot deny students free public education based on immigration status.
The council’s analysis of the case states that even if schools enroll undocumented students, collecting and reporting information about their status could dissuade immigrant families from enrolling their children.
Walters also commented on proposed revisions to social studies standards and a proposed administrative rule requiring schools to establish a policy ensuring the U.S. flag can be flown and displayed on all school campuses without infringement.
“We never want to see an issue like what happened in Edmond Public Schools again, where we have a rogue administrator taking an American flag away from a student,” Walters said. “We want to promote patriotism here in the state of Oklahoma, not undermine it. We want our kids to have a love for this country.”
The board also considered the fate of several teaching certificates during its executive session. It returned to vote on some particularly notable ones.
For example, the board voted to suspend the teaching license of Aaron Espolt. The Shawnee Public Schools superintendent was placed on administrative leave in August.
The board’s next meeting is scheduled for Jan. 23.
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