Oklahoma's top attorney issues a directive regarding the state schools superintendent
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond says the State Board of Education led by Ryan Walters cannot make rules without direction from state lawmakers.
The directive comes from a binding formal opinion issued Tuesday.
State Superintendent Walters recently pushed through administrative rules requiring teachers to out their students if they use different pronouns or names, allowing parents to review sex education materials in advance of teaching children receiving them, and penalize district accreditation statuses if they have QUOTE “sexualized or pornographic content” in the library.
Now, those requirements are moot.
In a four page opinion, Drummond says those rules went beyond Walters’ and the state board’s authority.
The legislature must pass a law for the state board of education or individual districts to enforce them.
Walters responded to the opinion in a written statement, saying he disagreed and that QUOTE "We must keep pornographic materials out of schools."
Walters sent out a 56-page news release Monday containing what he described as pornographic images in Oklahoma school libraries.
Oklahoma Participates in SNAP Mobile Payment Test
Oklahoma is one of five states that has been selected to test Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program mobile payments.
Officials say mobile payments are not only convenient for customers, they also provide a safer, more secure means of payment, reducing the risks for skimming and other fraud schemes.
Oklahoma retailers and SNAP customers may voluntarily participate in the pilot, or they may continue to use E-B-T card payments, if preferred.
Other states selected for the test program include Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts and Missouri.
Golfers with ties to Oklahoma are competing in the Masters Tournament
Thursday marks the beginning of one of the most historic golf tournaments in the world - The Masters Tournament.
Among the field of competitors are several graduates from Oklahoma universities.
The 87th Masters Golf tournament taking place at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia is about to start, and there are some Oklahoma connections.
Two former Oklahoma State University golfers will be in the field - Taylor Gooch and Viktor Hovland.
University of Oklahoma also has one alumni invited to the tournament, Abraham Ancer.
There is controversy surrounding Ancer's appearance. He left the PGA Tour to join LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed competitor to the PGA Tour.
Gooch also currently plays on the LIV Tour.
The Masters begins Thursday and will crown its champion on Sunday Evening, I’m David Asche.
Entire Art Collection is Online
The Oklahoma City Museum of Art is digitizing its art collection.
More than 45-hundred works from the museum’s permanent collection can now be viewed digitally online.
Besides preservation, the move to digitize the collection offers more accessibility and increases the opportunity for research from others.
The museum's director of collections and exhibits says typically museums can only display less than ten percent of their collection at any given time, so the endeavor will allow visitors to see the museum's entire collection.
To capture the art, the museum is using a special high-resolution camera that stitches together pictures to form a giga-pixel image... allowing a digitized painting to be viewed down to the brushstroke level.
Eagle Baby Hatches In Bartlesville
A monitored eagle's nest in eastern Oklahoma is seeing new life.
Despite wind and wildfires over the weekend, a baby eagle hatched in a Bartlesville nest monitored by the Sutton Avian Research Center.
Baby eagles remain with their parents for about twelve weeks, and the center is urging interested people to tune in to its live cam to get a look at the baby bird in its element.
As of Monday morning, there were two other unhatched eggs in the nest that the center says should be opening soon.
The Sutton Avian Research Center has been working on bald eagle restoration since the 1980s and says there are now more than 300 active nests in Oklahoma. You can find the bald eagle live cam at SuttonCenter.org
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