The Senate previewed its legislative agenda mid-January, with a focus on kindergarten through twelfth grade policy on literacy and numeracy, teacher recruitment and retention, and daily life for Oklahoma students. Other proposals to watch include changes to adjunct and emergency certified teachers, and new rules for district school boards and the State Board of Education.
For higher education, several proposals address international student admission, financial aid and institutional finances. Several measures also appear to be in response to an incident at the University of Oklahoma in which a student received a failing grade for an essay that referenced the Bible.
K-12: Literacy and numeracy
Increasing Oklahoma’s literacy scores is likely to be one of the main focuses of this year’s session. The efforts come as Oklahoma’s students continue to stagnate in reading scores. In the 2024-25 school year, only 27% of third graders tested proficient or advanced in reading on state tests. On National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) tests, only 23% of fourth graders and 20% of eighth graders tested proficient.
Third-grade retention was written into state law in 2011’s Reading Sufficiency Act. However, the legislature whittled down its enforcement over the years through exemptions and repealed the policy last year with the statute’s updated Strong Readers Act.
House Bill 2944 by Rep. Rob Hall, R-Tulsa, and Senate Bill 1271 by Sen. Michael Bergstrom, R-Adair, aim to bring third-grade retention back through the Reading Excellence through Accountability, Development and Standards (READS) Act. Third-grade students who do not pass literacy tests would be held back, with the exception of those who meet “good-cause” exemptions, such as English language learners.
Sen. Adam Pugh, R-Edmond, is proposing Senate Bill 1778, which would require first- through third-grade students who do not meet literacy targets to participate in a summer academy. Starting this fall, if first graders do not improve or do not participate in the academy, they would go to a transitional second-grade class or move on with targeted pull-out sessions.
In the 2028-29 school year, the law would apply to second graders. The following year, third graders not meeting grade-level targets would participate in a summer academy. If they do not improve, they will be retained in third grade with intensive intervention services, unless parents submit a written consent to be promoted to fourth grade.
Other proposed updates to the Strong Readers Act featuring third-grade retention include House Bill 4149 from Rep. Toni Hasenback, R-Elgin, House Bill 4420 by House Speaker Rep. Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, and House Bill 3023 from Rep. Dick Lowe, R-Amber.
Training teachers in effective reading instruction is also part of the legislative menu. Pugh’s Senate Bill 1338 would make permanent a previous pilot program to deploy literacy coaches in school districts identified for intervention. Oklahoma City Democratic Sen. Carri Hicks’ Senate Bill 1293 creates a revolving fund to provide pre-k through third-grade certified teachers with Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) training.
Senate Bill 1360 by Sen. Ally Seifried, R-Claremore, would establish a three-year pilot program to utilize math instructional teams to support the implementation of the Oklahoma Math Achievement and Proficiency Act, passed last year. The Oklahoma State Department of Education would assign math instructional team members to the lowest-scoring districts.
House Bill 3706 by Rep. Chad Caldwell, R-Enid, would require all public elementary schools to provide math instruction for a minimum of 60 minutes each day.
Teacher recruitment and retention
Several bills hope to attract more teachers to Oklahoma classrooms as the state continues to grapple with an educator shortage.
Pugh told StateImpact he is resurrecting last session’s Senate Bill 201, amending it to include a $2,500 pay raise for teachers. Hicks’ Senate Bill 1363 would raise teachers’ minimum salary schedule to start at $43,000, up from $39,601.
House Bill 3550 by Rep. Cody Maynard, R-Durant, would address teacher pay raises for years to come by requiring the minimum salary schedule to be automatically adjusted each school year by the percentage, if any, by which the Consumer Price Index increases.
Other pay bills include Pugh’s Senate Bill 1617, which would increase the amount certified special education teachers are to be paid from 5% to 10% above the prevailing wage of the employing district, and House Bill 4349 from Rep. Anthony Moore, R-Clinton, which would remove the five-year cap on out-of-state teaching experience for the minimum salary schedule.
Senate Bill 1776 from Pugh also aims to get more money in teachers’ pockets with a $10,000 tax credit for teachers in their eighth consecutive year. Teachers claiming the credit must continue to teach in the same district for three more consecutive years or face a clawback of the credit.
Several bills also look to augment the state’s teacher maternity leave policy, which currently allows a birthing parent to take six weeks of paid leave. Senate Bill 1202 by Sen. Mark Mann, D-Oklahoma City, and Senate Bill 1337 by Pugh would add parental leave. Senate Bill 1203 by Mann and House Bill 3467 by Rep. Brad Boles, R-Marlow, would add adoption to paid maternity leave.
Senate Bill 1201 by Mann would also add adoption to paid leave and raise maternity leave to 12 weeks.
Last year’s session saw the expansion of the Oklahoma Higher Learning Access Program (OHLAP), also known as Oklahoma’s Promise, to children of certified teachers who have been teaching in Oklahoma for 10 years.
This year, lawmakers are looking to expand access to the program, which offers tuition waivers to institutions within the Oklahoma State System of Higher Education and certain technology centers and private higher learning institutions.
Senate Bill 1615 by Sen. Avery Frix, R-Muskogee, would allow certified administrators like principals to apply for participation. House Bill 4326 by Moore would add full-time counselors, librarians, nurses, athletic trainers and teachers employed to teach K-12 students at technology centers. House Bill 3395 by Amanda Clinton, D-Tulsa, would make support employees eligible.
Oklahoma students
Other proposals may change the daily experiences of students in Oklahoma classrooms.
Seifried’s Senate Bill 1719 would make last session’s bell-to-bell cell phone ban permanent. Originally, the law required districts to adopt a policy for the 2025-26 school year and said districts “may” adopt a policy for subsequent years.
Two bills — Pugh’s Senate Bill 1437 and Senate Bill 1523 from Sen. Dana Prieto, R-Tulsa — would reinstate the Presidential Fitness Test in Oklahoma schools, based on recommendations of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition. President Donald Trump revived the test last summer, which was phased out during the Obama administration.
Other bills are also looking to keep Oklahoma students physically active during the school day.
Pugh’s Senate Bill 2045 would require at least 30 minutes of daily recess — up from 20 — for full-day pre-kindergarten and full-day kindergarten through fifth grade. Seifried’s Senate Bill 1481 would require 40 minutes of recess and prohibit it from being withheld from students as a form of discipline. House Bill 3288 from Rep. Cynthia Roe, R-Lindsay, would raise the physical education requirement from 60 minutes to 150 minutes per week.
As schools across Oklahoma embrace artificial intelligence tools, such as the literacy platform Amira, some lawmakers are looking to limit the influence the technology has in the classroom.
Seifried’s Senate Bill 1734, known as the “Oklahoma Responsible Technology in Schools Act,” would prohibit AI from being used for instructional or educational purposes except through educator-directed use. The Oklahoma State Department of Education would develop guidance for districts on using AI, and district boards of education would be required to adopt AI policies.
House Bill 3023 from Lowe specifies that reading intervention for students would not be provided “solely” by digital technology, but would include a majority of direct instruction from an educator.
Two bills, Senate Bill 1292 from Hicks and Senate Bill 1366 from Sen. Dusty Deevers, R-Elgin, would create high-dosage tutoring plans for English Language Arts and math. Students found behind on screening tests would be assigned to district-employed tutors. Tutors would make $1,600 for each cohort per semester and $1,000 for each grade level increase for each student within a cohort within an academic year.
Adjunct and emergency certified teachers
Several bills look to limit the scope of adjunct teachers, whose qualifications do not require standard, alternative or emergency certification but are instead left up to individual districts.
House Bill 3022 from Lowe specifies that adjunct teachers without valid teaching certifications would not serve as full-time or part-time classroom teachers for core subject areas in pre-kindergarten through sixth grade and must hold a high school diploma. Similarly, House Bill 3010 from Rep. Ellen Pogemiller, D-Oklahoma City, would prohibit adjunct teachers without a valid certification from teaching pre-kindergarten through fifth grade.
Senate Bill 1614 from Seifried would also prohibit adjuncts from being employed as full-time math or English teachers in grades one through five, as well as require adjuncts hold high school diplomas. Hicks’ Senate Bill 1413 would limit adjunct teachers to 270 clock hours of classroom teaching per semester.
House Bill 4427 would require adjuncts to have distinguished qualifications in their field and at least two years of professional or academic experience in the subject area in which they teach, unless the district applies for a waiver.
A bachelor’s degree would also be required, unless they are enrolled in a baccalaureate program with an estimated completion of less than two years or have 20 or more years of distinguished experience. It would further prohibit instruction of core curriculum classes in pre-kindergarten through fourth grade unless requested through a waiver signed by the State Board of Education.
As the state continues to see thousands of emergency certifications issued each year, another part of Senate Bill 1413 would require districts to provide written notice to parents and guardians of students in a class taught by an emergency certified teacher.
District and State Boards of Education
For local boards of education, several measures have been proposed to increase transparency and reduce conflicts of interest.
Rep. Chris Banning, R-Bixby, is proposing House Bill 2981, which would require district boards to post their meeting minutes to the school’s website within two weeks of the board’s approval of the minutes. The minutes would be accessible within two clicks of the main page, and failure to comply would result in an accreditation deficiency.
Pugh’s Senate Bill 1524 would require districts to post within one click of the home page the name, picture, email, phone, mailing address and short biography for each board member. The bio must include the date the member was elected and when their term expires, as well as the date of the next election for the board, information on how to become a candidate and a map of each board district.
Senate Bill 1200 from Sen. Kendal Sacchieri, R-Blanchard, would prohibit people from being a school board candidate or elected member if they have an interest in 5% or more of a company, individual or business concern engaged in the issuance of bonds for districts or the construction or remodeling of facilities.
For the State Board of Education, which has seen a recent significant overhaul, several proposals appear to be in response to the tumultuous tenure of former State Superintendent Ryan Walters’ time on the board.
House Joint Resolution 1042 from Rep. Jacob Rosecrants, D-Norman, would send a ballot measure for a Constitutional amendment to Oklahoma voters that would remove language saying the Superintendent of Public Instruction is also president of the State Board of Education. Rosecrants’ House Bill 3014 would also remove the state superintendent as chairperson of the State Board, letting the board fill the seat.
House Bill 3327 from Rep. Mike Osburn, R-Edmond, would change the makeup of the State Board of Education from seven members to nine. Instead of all members being appointed by the governor, members’ appointments would be split up between the governor, the Speaker of the House and the Senate Pro Tempore. The governor would no longer be able to remove all members either, but specifies that members can only be removed for cause by their appointing authority.
Following months-long conflict between the former superintendent and board members over placing items on meeting agendas, House Bill 4361 by Moore would allow any member of the board to be authorized to place an item on an agenda upon concurrence by at least three members.
Higher education: International students
At least 10 bills propose restrictions on international students at Oklahoma colleges and universities.
Pugh’s Senate Bill 2050 is one of several that would prohibit students not lawfully present in the U.S. from receiving scholarships, financial aid or resident tuition. Senate Bill 2006 from Seifried would prohibit higher education institutions from using state funds to provide scholarships, grants, tuition aid or discounted tuition to any international student from a country designated by the U.S. Department of State as a country of particular concern.
Senate Bill 1669 from Sen. Shane Jett, R-Shawnee, would require higher education institutions to publish on their websites the number of students enrolled from foreign countries, which countries students are from and the percentage of total enrollment made by international students.
Finances and employment
House Joint Resolution 1037 from Rep. Gabe Woolley, R-Broken Arrow, would send to the people of Oklahoma a ballot measure that, if approved, would grant the legislature the authority to freeze, suspend or withhold up to 100% of state-appropriated funds recommended for allocation for a higher education institution. Freezes would not exceed a period of two years.
Sen. Randy Grellner, R-Cushing, is proposing Senate Bill 1782, which would prohibit universities from establishing tenure plans for faculty starting next year. It would also limit contracts to five years, and it would require institutions to submit a report to the Regents listing faculty and graduate assistants.
Response to the Fulnecky incident
Several bills appear to be in response to an incident at the University of Oklahoma in which a student, Samantha Fulnecky, received a failing grade from a graduate teaching assistant for an essay that referenced the Bible.
Senate Bill 1886 from Sen. David Bullard, R-Durant, would encode several rights into law, including the right to be free from faculty lowering or “exhibiting grading bias for political beliefs or expressing constitutionally protected freedoms.”
Sen. Julie Daniels, R-Bartlesville, is proposing Senate Bill 1726, which would establish a formal training program for graduate student instructors with focuses that include assessments, grading standards and the protection of students’ First Amendment rights. It specifies that students shall not be penalized on the basis of lawful expression.
House Bill 3700 by Rep. Chad Caldwell, R-Enid, would require higher education institutions to adopt and implement a policy that requires student grades to be evaluated “solely on an academic basis.” It prohibits grades from being evaluated based on the students’ opinions, beliefs or conduct unrelated to academic situations.
StateImpact Oklahoma is a partnership of Oklahoma’s public radio stations which relies on contributions from readers and listeners to fulfill its mission of public service to Oklahoma and beyond. Donate online.
