Enrollment begins for 2025-2026, says OKCPS
OKCPS says, families can now enroll through its streamlined process allowing parents and guardians to enroll at their preference in securing a spot for the upcoming school year.
'We are thrilled to offer our families a convenient way to enroll their students for the 2025-26 school year,' said Dr. Jamie Polk, Superintendent of OKCPS. 'Early enrollment isn't just about securing a seat—it helps us plan ahead to ensure we have the best teachers, the right resources, and the high-quality programs our students deserve. When families choose OKCPS, they're choosing a district that provides the support, opportunities, and education needed to ensure our graduates walk across the stage ready for what's next—whether that's enrolling in higher education, enlisting in the military, or entering the workforce with the skills to thrive. We invite families to enroll today and be part of a district that is focused on student success at every level.'
According to OKCPS, online enrollment is open to both new and returning students. New families are asked to enroll without delay to guarantee school placement. Returning families can also use the portal to update their information and confirm their child's enrollment for the new year.
New legal challenges filed against latest OSDE proposal for Bible-based lessons
Families can expect to use the portal to update information and confirm enrollment for the year through the OKCPS website click www.okcps.org/enroll.
To enroll, families will need:
A parent/guardian email address
Proof of residence (for new families)
The student's proof of identity (birth certificate or passport)
Immunization records
Additionally, OKCPS confirmed hosting district-wide in-person enrollment events, mobile enrollment buses, and assistance at district-hosted back-to-school events.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


New York Post
14 hours ago
- New York Post
Lucky NYC traveler finds $27K diamond in an Arkansas park — now she has a special use for it: ‘I got on my knees and cried'
She's a local rock star. Bidding a temporary farewell to the Big Apple boded well for future bride Micherre Fox, 31, who stumbled upon a 2.30-carat white diamond — worth around $27,000 — during a three-week hunt at the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas. It's a finger-licking find that's saving her fiancé a handful of dough. 5 Fox spent several weeks scouring through an Arkansas park, looking for a diamond for her engagement ring. Arkansas State Parks 'Having never seen an actual diamond in my hands, I didn't know for sure, but it was the most diamond-y diamond I had seen,' the Manhattan-based millennial raved in a statement. 'I got on my knees and cried, then started laughing.' Fox, a recent graduate school grad, decided to celebrate her academic achievements with an excavating adventure through the park's diamond-search area, a 37.5-acre landmark, where over 75,000 stellar stones have been unearthed since the early 1900s. A staggering 366 diamonds have been registered at Crater of Diamonds in 2025 alone, including 11 weighing more than one carat each. Fox did not immediately respond to The Post's request for a comment. But now, she's laughing on easy street. 5 Fox experienced an array of emotions — including tearful shock and laughing excitement — upon finding her diamond on the last day of the hunt. Arkansas State Parks With the national average cost of an engagement ring totaling $5,500, per a recent study, Fox and her groom-to-be, who fully supported her decision to dig for her own diamond, are coming up roses ahead of their big day. Owing to the high price of weddings, which can cost couples across the country more than $26,000 — and the lovebirds near NYC over $58,000 — every penny counts. Rather than blowing their budget on a ritzy rock, Fox was more than eager to take engagement matters into her own hands — quite literally. 'I was willing to go anywhere in the world to make that happen,' she said. 'I researched, and it turned out that the only place in the world to do it was right in our backyard, in Arkansas!' 5 The largest diamond ever discovered in Crater of Diamonds State Park was a 40.23-carat rock, which is now part of the Smithsonian's mineral and gem collection. Shutterstock / VioletSkyAdventures Well, it's not so much 'our backyard' as it is 1,200 miles away from New York — but hey, who's counting? 'There's something symbolic about being able to solve problems with money, but sometimes money runs out in a marriage,' added Fox. 'You need to be willing and able to solve those problems with hard work.' And work, she did. The brunette kicked off her weeks-long search on July 8, spending hours combing through the grounds at Crater of Diamonds for bling. Daily, she'd hit the trail, desperately looking high and low for that glitzy glow, but would routinely come up empty-handed. Fox's luck, however, changed at 11 a.m. on July 29, her final day at the park, when she noticed something shiny by her feet. The nearly-wed initially assumed it was an iridescent, dew-covered spiderweb. 5 Fox initially mistook the stone for a spiderweb until she got a closer look and discovered it was, in fact, a diamond. Arkansas State Parks But after giving it a slight nudge and noticing its gleam, Fox realized she'd scored treasure. Experts at the park's Diamond Discovery Center confirmed that Fox had found a white, or colorless, diamond weighing more than two carats. It's approximately the size of a human canine tooth. The gem — which she's named the Fox-Ballou Diamond — in honor of her and her fiancé, reportedly boasts a smooth, rounded shape and beautiful metallic luster, typical of most Crater diamonds. It is the third-largest diamond found at the park, thus far, this year. Park officials are happy for the soon-to-be married gal. 5 Park authorities confirmed the weight and color of Fox's sweet fine, and congratulated her on the dazzling discovery. Shutterstock / VioletSkyAdventures 'Ms. Fox's story highlights the fact that, even when putting forth your best effort, being in the right place at the right time plays a part in finding diamonds,' said Waymon Cox, Crater of Diamonds State Park Assistant Superintendent, in a statement. 'After weeks of hard work, Ms. Fox found her diamond sitting right on top of the ground.' A satisfies Fox is grateful that her search was successful — and that it's now over. 'After all the research, there's luck and there's hard work,' said the belle, who plans to have the rock set in her engagement ring. 'When you are literally picking up the dirt in your hands, no amount of research can do that for you; no amount of education can take you all the way.' 'It was daunting!'


Miami Herald
18 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Adopted dog was ‘dumped over a fence.' Now he needs someone ‘who won't give up'
An adopted dog was 'dumped over a fence' — and now, he needs a fresh start. 'He deserves someone who won't give up on him,' a Florida animal shelter wrote Aug. 7 on Facebook. 'Someone to love him, protect him, and committed to him.' Baby Bear waits for a new home after traveling nearly 1,000 miles. His journey started after he was adopted from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) Florida in 2022, Randa Richter, humane programs and public media director, told McClatchy News via email. Then recently, the Lakeland-based shelter received a call from West Virginia. A facility found Baby Bear and checked his microchip, which stores the contact information of pet owners. 'How he traveled to West Virginia, nobody knows; but what we do know is that he was dumped over a fence at a West Virginia Animal Control,' SPCA Florida wrote in a news release. 'Scared, nervous, and unsure, Baby Bear found himself in a foreign environment, with loud barking dogs, strangers, and different smells.' Shelter workers reached out to Baby Bear's family but didn't hear back. After the 10-year-old mixed breed dog was left behind, SPCA Florida said it didn't want someone to fail him again. 'We knew we had to act fast — because unlike SPCA Florida, that shelter didn't have a no-kill policy,' the animal organization wrote. 'Time was running out.' So, SPCA Florida arranged for a volunteer to fly Baby Bear back to its shelter in Lakeland, a roughly 35-mile drive east from Tampa. He showed off his 'sweet' and well-behaved nature as he got 'first-class service' on the flight, according to the Facebook post and an online adoption profile. 'He stepped off the plane, tail wagging, ears perked, and eyes full of trust,' the shelter wrote. 'He looked as if he finally knew he was home.' As of Aug. 13, the shelter's website still listed the rescued senior pup among the animals available for adoption. Details about the shelter's adoption process can be found at 'Come meet Baby Bear and be the reason his journey ends in joy,' the shelter wrote. 'After all he's been through… this sweet boy deserves nothing less than the best.'

Boston Globe
a day ago
- Boston Globe
Once houses of worship, soon homes for those who need them: More churches are becoming affordable housing
Advertisement The decision to close the church was difficult and painful, said Isbitsky, whom the congregation hired last year to be its 'legacy pastor,' charged with guiding the institution through its dissolution and ensuring an enduring legacy. Deciding what to do with the property was much simpler. 'It is impossible to ignore how difficult it has become to find stable housing,' Isbitsky said. 'So no one just wanted to stick a 'for sale' sign out front and let someone buy the place. People want to help.' Pastor Adam Isbitsky opened panels inside the Second Congregational United Church of Christ to reveal the church's original wooden door from 1714. Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff Long a cornerstone of American life, many churches and other places of worship have fallen on hard times in recent years Advertisement And while many congregations are significantly reduced, they still own large chunks of real estate — acquired and built out in a bygone era when they needed space for services, schools, and dormitories — that they can no longer afford to maintain. As they consider their futures, which in many cases include reducing their real estate footprint or even dissolving altogether, congregations from Roxbury to Cambridge to Allston are opting to transform mostly empty properties into housing for lower income families. There's even a bill on Beacon Hill that would aim to make it easier. It's a natural second life for places of worship. Massachusetts has 'The Bible is pretty explicit about the value of shelter, and importance of helping people,' said Isbitsky. 'Those are true Christian values.' Second Congregational's church on Conant Street in Beverly was built in 1714, and it shows. The original wooden front door, along with a document signed by the first parishioners, is hidden behind a rickety wooden panel in the sanctuary that Isbitsky can only pry open on certain days. Other pieces of the original sanctuary remain as well, though the building has been added on to and rotated over the years. At its peak, Second Congregational served 750 people, but these days it has just 64 members, most of whom are older. Isbitsky spends most of his time winding through the rooms and hallways of a largely empty building. Advertisement As Second Congregational's membership dwindled, its congregation a few years ago came to the difficult conclusion that it no longer made sense for the church to operate. Before long, they had received multiple proposals from groups interested in taking over the building. One of those came from the homeless nonprofit Lifebridge North Shore, which members quickly identified as the obvious choice. The church has a long history of working with Lifebridge and other homeless groups. 'We see homeless people struggling in our community everyday,' said Jack Terrill, a longtime member of the church. 'The idea that our church could do something to help people was very popular among the congregation.' Pastor Adam Isbitsky addressed congregants during the Sunday service at the Second Congregational United Church of Christ in Beverly this month. Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff So, pending approval from the public charities division of the attorney general's office, Second Congregational will hand the building over to Lifebridge in a year or so. It's essentially a charitable donation, which the nonprofit plans to use as a services center for the local homeless population that will complement its nearby shelters. LifeBridge is still figuring out exactly what to do with the space, said executive director Jason Etheridge. It won't be an overnight shelter, but the building is big enough to support numerous services like casework and food distribution. And it's a bit of a full-circle event for the nonprofit: LifeBridge was formed as a soup kitchen by the old Crombie Street Congregational Church in Salem in the late 1970s. Advertisement The pipeline of places of worship being transformed into housing is growing quickly, and some policy makers are hoping to speed it up. A In a state with exorbitant land prices and a general shortage of places to build in the urban core, the large real estate footprint of many religious groups represents an opportunity to make a dent in the state's housing problem, said state Senator Brendan Crighton, who represents Lynn and cosponsored the 'Yes in God's Back Yard.' The Archdiocese of Boston and other Catholic churches in particular have a large portfolio of properties that could be redeveloped. In Roxbury, St. Katharine Drexel Parish has plans to transform the land behind its Parish Center near Ruggles into a mixed-use complex that will include 217 apartments and condominiums, most of which will be set aside at affordable rate, and retail and community space. The project, which the church will call Drexel Village, is being built by the Planning Office of Urban Affairs, a nonprofit development arm of the Archdiocese of Boston. The motivations for the project were many, said the Rev. Oscar Pratt, the pastor at St. Katharine Drexel. The first is that the project will help sustain the church financially and will include a full renovation of the aging parish center. Advertisement But Pratt has also watched out his office window as this corner of Roxbury — near the bustling corner of Tremont Street and Melnea Cass Boulevard — has been transformed in recent years with shiny new apartment buildings with market rents that his congregation, most of whom are longtime Roxbury residents, cannot afford. 'This is a social justice enterprise,' said Pratt. 'We want to make sure that we, the community, isn't going anywhere.' But turning old church buildings into apartments can be logistically challenging. In East Cambridge, for example, nonprofit developer Preservation of Affordable Housing recently began work transforming the rectory, school, and convent buildings of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church into affordable housing. It'll put 46 affordable units into the complex, which covers a full block near Kendall Square, while maintaining the historic brick shells of the buildings, and preserving the still-open church itself. Because the buildings were originally laid out for other uses, each apartment the developer builds will be different, and won't stack symmetrically from floor to floor, as apartment buildings typically do. Many apartments will, though, have the old stained glass windows. Congregants embraced during the Passing Peace portion of the Sunday service at the Second Congregational United Church of Christ in Beverly. Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff There are other hurdles, too. When news of the Lifebridge project in Beverly reached the public, some residents were outraged, saying the center would be a danger to the community. At one public meeting, residents yelled over Isbitsky and at Mayor Mike Cahill, though in this case, anyway, the town does not have jurisdiction over the project because it is a transaction between two nonprofit entities. Advertisement 'I don't have anything against the homeless . . . but I just see more and more coming [to the neighborhood],' one resident said. 'And they're not all nice.' When Isbitsky wanders through the empty rooms and hallways of Second Congregational, he thinks about the word 'legacy' a lot, and what churches should mean to communities in a new era when fewer people actually attend them. 'It used to be that people in need would go to the church to find help when they had nowhere else to go,' he said. 'For us, that is still going to be the case, even after the congregation is gone.' Andrew Brinker can be reached at