Latest news with #OklahomaRuralSchoolsCoalition
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Cellphones will be banned in Oklahoma schools for 2025-26 school year: What to know
Oklahoma students won't have access to their cellphones while at school and will have fewer virtual school days under bills signed into law by Gov. Kevin Stitt. Sen. Ally Seifried, R-Claremore, and Rep. Chad Caldwell, R-Enid, worked for two years toward the passage of Senate Bill 139. The new law will require public school districts to limit student cellphone use during the school day ― from 'bell to bell' — for the entire 2025-26 school year. After that, district officials will have the flexibility to adjust their cellphone policies as they see fit. Seifried said the law is aimed at creating distraction-free learning environments for students. 'This will allow teachers to focus entirely on educating our kids while students can concentrate on learning as much as possible," she said. "After two years of hard work on this issue, I'm thrilled to see this legislation become law, and I'm confident students, parents and teachers will see immediate benefits once the new school year begins." Under the new law, district cellphone policies must make exceptions for students who need their phones to manage a medical condition and allow phone use in emergencies. Additionally, districts must clearly outline disciplinary actions for students who violate a school's phone-free policy. Virtual-days bill signed over objections of some rural schools Sen. Kristen Thompson, R-Edmond, and Rep. Anthony Moore, R-Clinton, authored Senate Bill 758, which will restrict Oklahoma school districts to only two virtual days per school year that can count toward the 180-day or 1,080-hour school year instructional requirement. The new law will require each district school board to approve a local virtual instruction plan that addresses special education services, nutrition for students who receive free or reduced lunches, transportation access to career tech programs and an assessment of students' internet accessibility. Senate President Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle, said the measure was important to him and thanked Thompson for making the bill a priority. A bill limiting virtual days in Oklahoma schools, authored by Sen. Kristen Thompson, of Edmond, has been signed into law. 'I truly believe the best place for our kids to learn is in the classroom," Paxton said. "Once this becomes law, it will help with learning, social skills and working parents who have to schedule their lives around arbitrary virtual learning days.' Thompson spent two legislative sessions shepherding the bill, but she has received considerable pushback from leaders of small, rural school districts, some of which offer four-day school weeks — with either a virtual day or an off day on the fifth day ― as incentives to attract teachers to work in their districts. Erika Buzzard Wright, the founder of the Oklahoma Rural Schools Coalition, called Stitt's decision to sign the bill 'a significant setback' for rural school districts. She said voices from rural schools were "completely ignored throughout the legislative process' and said the new law 'effectively strips local districts of the ability to make decisions that best serve their students.' 'This is a slap in the face to local control — especially for rural districts that have worked tirelessly to attract and retain qualified educators,' Wright said. 'Our schools are already competing with neighboring states that not only offer better pay, but also embrace flexible, innovative school calendars.' She predicted schools located near Oklahoma's borders with other states will have teachers poached as a result. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: When will Oklahoma's cellphone ban in schools begin? What to know
NBC News
29-03-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
A battle over religion and schools in Oklahoma could decide the future of the First Amendment
Lori Walke, a minister at Mayflower Congregational United Church of Christ in Oklahoma City, is one of those plaintiffs. The congregation leans left, with a sign featuring the LGBTQ pride flag hanging on the entrance lobby wall. 'Here in Oklahoma, we seem to be the training ground for Christian nationalism,' Walke said in an interview in her cozy office a few steps from the church's simple, white-painted sanctuary. A sign saying 'nobody's free until everybody's free' hung behind her desk. 'Christian nationalism' is a loose term some have applied to conservative Christians who want to open up government spaces to religious, and specifically Christian, speech and symbolism. Critics like Walke say the aim of Christian nationalists is to impose their religious views on others. 'When I heard that this religious institution was insisting that it be given taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate and coerce and discriminate, my first response was that people of faith had to rise up and be the bulwark that defends our families and our public schools,' Walke said. Another plaintiff, Erika Wright, sees the fight as being primarily about protecting rural schools in the state. She lives in the town of Noble, about an hour south of Oklahoma City, and currently has two kids in public school. Speaking in her spacious house outside of town, an antique hunting rifle hanging over the mantelpiece, she explained how she heard about the Catholic school idea early on through her work with the Oklahoma Rural Schools Coalition, a public education advocacy group. The most worrying thing for her about approving religious public charter schools is 'the door that this opens to really depleting and diverting crucial resources from our public schools,' she said. Wright, who is a Republican, said there are more than a dozen churches in her area that already do a good job of providing religious instruction to young people. 'We have enough Sunday schools around here,' she said. Constitutional tension The Oklahoma case will go before a Supreme Court that has in recent years rolled back strict, longtime boundaries on government involvement with religious entities. As a result, the court has been inundated with cases brought by religious groups seeking to dismantle, brick by brick, the 'wall' that Jefferson described. Nowhere is that more apparent than education, where advocates for school choice — who want education funds to follow their children into private, often religious schools — are eager to remove legal obstacles. In doing so, the court has rejected arguments made by government entities that the establishment clause requires them to stay out of religion altogether. 'The goal is that religion should be left to the private choices of individuals,' said Luke Goodrich, a lawyer at religious rights group Becket. The government 'controls so many levers of power' that it is easy for its actions to infringe upon religious liberty, he added. The current Supreme Court views the establishment clause through a historical lens dating back to the founding, Goodrich said. Then, it had a limited and defined meaning that was aimed at preventing government control over churches and religious exercise and nothing more, he added. That interpretation is fiercely contested. 'It's a lie about American history,' Rachel Laser, president of Americans United, said in an interview.
