Policy and Advocacy

Policy and Advocacy

Julie Collins

Oklahoma Education Legislative, Policy, and Advocacy Updates

The second regular session of the 58th Oklahoma State Legislature is just wrapping up from its Spring 2022 session. This column will summarize important education legislation and information about advocating for your views with legislators.

Legislation

One of the most immediate areas for attention in reading education stems from a previously passed bill, House Bill 2804, authored by Representatives Sanders, Albright, Conley, Townley, Davis, and Hill, and Senator Bice in 2020, This school year, 2022-2023, is the year this legislation begins to require that any child in kindergarten through third grade found not to be meeting grade-level targets in reading following the beginning of the year assessments under the Reading Sufficiency Act be screened for dyslexia. Screening for dyslexia may also be requested by a parent or guardian or certain school personnel. Districts are required to provide annual professional development regarding dyslexia. You should ask about this if your district is not providing you with information to meet these requirements. The Oklahoma State Board of Education was charged with developing policies for the screening and adopting a list of approved dyslexia screening tools to address these components of dyslexia: phonological awareness, advanced phonemic awareness, sound-symbol recognition, alphabet knowledge, decoding skills, encoding skills, rapid naming, and developmental language. Districts will report data regarding the implementation of the screening, as well as the identification of students and interventions provided, annually to the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) beginning in June 2023. Information about the screening instruments to be used beginning this school year can be found on the OSDE Special Education Dyslexia Resources Page. You can find more information about dyslexia, assessing students, and providing intervention for students with dyslexia in Oklahoma on the OSDE Special Education Dyslexia Page.

House Bill 2768 authored by Representatives Randleman and Mize and Senator Standridge during this 2022 session adds dysgraphia to the Oklahoma Dyslexia Handbook, which was developed and made available to schools in 2019. Beginning January 1, 2024, this resource will be known as the dyslexia and dysgraphia handbook. The review committee designated for this addition to the handbook will study how to effectively identify students who have dysgraphia through possible reading and broad written language scores; study the responseto-intervention (RTI) process, as well as other effective research-based approaches in writing, reading, and literacy to identify the appropriate measures for assisting students with dysgraphia; and make recommendations for appropriate resources and interventions for students with reading or writing difficulties, including dysgraphia and broad written language disorder, in order to make schools aware of the significance of dysgraphia. You can find the full text of this bill here.

House Bill 3092, relating to school libraries, was authored by Representatives Hilbert and Phillips and Senators Leewright and Stanley. This bill requires school library media programs to reflect community standards when selecting age-appropriate materials. The bill was signed into law by Governor Stitt on April 29th. The complete text of this bill can be found here. Another bill regarding school library programs was considered this year. House Bill 1142, authored by Senators Standridge, Newhouse, and Allen, was heard in the Senate, and received a great deal of press coverage. This bill contained specific criteria for books to be in violation of being held in public school inventory and outlined a process for removal of any book that may violate the material description.

House Bill 3564 authored by Representatives McBride, Fugate, Baker, Phillips, Nollan, Conley, Waldron, Stark, and Provenzano and Senators Pemberton and Stephens creates the Oklahoma Future Teacher Scholarship and Employment Incentive Program. Governor Stitt signed this legislation into law on May 26th. You can find the full text of this bill here. This program will be administered by the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education (OSRHE). OSRHE is charged with creating a committee of educators, teacher education faculty from participating institutions, representatives of public schools, and representatives of the Oklahoma State Department of Education to make recommendations to the OSRHE, that is charged with creating rules and procedures for students to be able to receive the funding. All funding is contingent on availability of funds. While this program is for students who are still in Oklahoma high schools, this bill is to help address the teacher shortage in our state by assisting future teachers with their education and incentivizing them to stay and teach in Oklahoma.

This program essentially has two parts, with the second part being contingent on participating and completing the first portion. A participant must be a graduate of an Oklahoma high school and meet other requirements delineated in the law. The first part of the program is a scholarship to assist students seeking to complete an undergraduate teacher education preparation degree at an Oklahoma public university or an accredited private university, as defined in the legislation. This scholarship will consist of $1,000 for up to three years for fulltime students who have fewer than 90 hours of study completed, and $2,500 for the final year of study for students with 90 or more hours of study completed, with the final year including student teaching. The total scholarship funds available during the undergraduate program is $5,500.

The second part of the program is for students who have completed the scholarship portion during the undergraduate degree. Prior to entering the scholarship program, the candidate must have agreed to teach a minimum of 5 consecutive years in an Oklahoma public school, prekindergarten through twelfth grade. The OSRHE shall create an employment incentive program which will, as funds are available, provide incentive payments following the completion of each school year of $4,000 for up to 5 consecutive years, for a total incentive payment for $20,000.

Advocacy

As you encounter issues in the profession that you feel could be addressed through legislation, I encourage you to reach out to your representative and senator. Many legislators report that pieces of legislation are often a result of contact from a constituent. You can find the members of the House of Representatives and the Senate from links on this site. In addition to your legislators, you are welcome to contact the chairs and the members of the committees hearing legislation you are interested in during the next session. You can find committee lists from the same link. Your legislators should welcome your calls and emails. Please empower yourself to share your thoughts with them about proposed or new legislation. You would be surprised to learn how few citizens contact them!

Wishing you a safe and healthy summer break with time to relax and refresh before beginning the next school year!

Dr. Julie Collins enjoyed all of her literacy experiences in Oklahoma City, Norman, and Putnam City Public Schools and at the OSDE, before becoming a professor at the University of Central Oklahoma. She can be contacted at JCollins18@uco.edu.