Senate leaders announce over $22 million in funding for a new program aimed at retaining Oklahoma teachers. The initiative is part of the sprawling education package from this spring’s legislative session.
The money for the new Teacher Empowerment Program is coming from Oklahoma Lottery proceeds. It will allow administrators to designate up to 10% of their teaching force as advanced, lead or master teachers. Depending on that designation level, a set amount of additional days will be added to the teacher’s contract, along with a salary increase. Districts pay half of the salary increase, the state pays the other half.
And the increases are pretty substantial - advanced teachers get a minimum of $6,000 more, lead teachers get at least $10,000, and master teachers get at least $20,000 added to their pay. To be one of the designated teachers, the state department has a list of criteria - though schools can also design their own qualification system if they provide justification for it.
Critics of the program say it could lead to cronyism between administrators and teachers, and small districts point out 10% of their teaching force would mean just a handful of teachers getting the hefty salary bump. And though the program was just officially funded, the application window for this semester has come and gone.
More than three dozen rural businesses in Oklahoma will receive funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for various renewable energy projects.
More than $4 million dollars in grants from the USDA’s Rural Energy for America Program will help thirty-eight rural Oklahoma businesses and agriculture producers to develop renewable energy systems and lower their energy costs.
A distribution center for Milo’s Tea Company in Owasso is the largest recipient with a grant of more than half a million dollars. The business will use the money to install a renewable solar system that will help them save nearly $90,000 a year on energy costs.
Oklahoma is one of 47 states sharing more than $260 million in grants dedicated to funding renewable energy systems across the country.
As Tulsa nears the completion of a low-water dam, residents have voiced concerns about water quality in the Arkansas River. The city will be monitoring water quality in the new Zink Lake, but not until spring of next year.
The $48 million Zink Dam project will create a small lake the city hopes people will spend time on and around.
But some advocates have questioned whether the water is clean enough for recreation — that segment of the Arkansas River is listed as having too much of the heavy metal cadmium to be fishable and swimmable.
City engineer Brooke Caviness says the city can only test the water quality after a nearby refinery finishes a streambank stabilization project.
"Then we will be able to impound water, have water in the lake, and start our water quality testing, our trail repairs on the West Bank and hopefully a parking area on the West Bank," said Caviness.
Caviness says she expects that will be in March of next year.
The OU College of Nursing received a $10.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health last week to partner with Indigenous communities and examine maternal health inequities within them.
Indigenous women in Oklahoma and across the U.S. experience the highest death rates and health complications during and after pregnancy. Data from the CDC shows that over 90% of these pregnancy-related deaths are preventable. Because of a seven-year grant, the OU College of Nursing will get to study what is causing this increase in death and disease.
The college will work closely with the Southern Plains Tribal Health Board — representing 43 tribal nations in Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas — to research and develop interventions like addressing food insecurity for expecting mothers .
The grant’s work will result in the creation of the Center for Indigenous Resilience, Culture, and Maternal Health Equity, or CIRCLE, which represents how Indigenous communities honor the interdependence and interconnectedness of all living things. This center will serve mothers in Oklahoma and the Southern Plains.
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