OOOOOOOOK-lahoma!

And then there’s Oklahoma.

A few days ago I shared a story about the Los Angeles Unified School District and their attempts to assist undocumented immigrant families by educating them about their rights and establishing district policies intended to protect young learners during school time.

But Oklahoma is a different place and a different story.

As The 74’s Linda Jacobson reported today,

“Four months ago, Oklahoma’s Republican state Superintendent Ryan Walters praised the Tulsa Public Schools for bucking national enrollment trends among urban districts.”

“The student population has not only ticked upward, but the district saw an unprecedented influx of English learners.”

“’It’s a huge testament to the work being done in Tulsa,’ he said at a state board meeting. ‘I think that you’re seeing parents that have confidence in what’s being done there.’”

“But now he wants parents in Tulsa and other districts throughout the state to share their citizenship status when they enroll their children – a proposal that not only violates federal law but is likely to keep some parents from sending their children to school.”

“Districts say they don’t know how many undocumented students they have, but in Tulsa, the population of English learners grew from 10,168 in 2023 to 11,149 last year.”

“President-elect Donald Trump’s supporters are celebrating Walters’ effort to end ‘sanctuary schools,’ but district leaders say the plan is traumatizing vulnerable families.”

“’It’s hurtful, and it’s going to create fear,’ said Nick Migliorino, superintendent of the Norman Public Schools, south of Oklahoma City. ‘Not educating kids because of the status of their parents helps nobody.’”

“The Oklahoma State Department of Education says the proposed rule is needed to determine how many tutors and teachers districts need for English learners. But it comes as many national Republicans are eager to challenge a longstanding Supreme Court ruling, Plyler v. Doe, which guarantees undocumented students an education in the U.S.”

“’It’s reasonable to presume that this is an attack on Plyler,’ said Julie Sugarman, associate director of the National Center on Immigrant Integration at the Migrant Policy Institute. ‘If the Supreme Court was to say, ‘Well, we changed our mind – you actually can ask about immigration status,’ that would really put all of Plyler into question.’”

“The public has until Jan. 17 to submit comments on the rule. The state Board of Education will hold a public hearing the same day.”

“The plan follows an election in which President-elect Donald Trump referred to the U.S. as a ‘dumping ground’ for undocumented immigrants. He has called for ending a ban on Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids at schools on the day he takes office and said he would deport families – even if their children were born in the U.S.”

“Walters foreshadowed the new rule in July when he asked districts to account for the ‘cost and burden’ of illegal immigration. And on Tuesday, he sued U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and ICE Deputy Director Peter Flores for $474 million, saying their ‘failed border policies’ have placed ‘severe financial and operational strain’ on Oklahoma’s schools. He sent Vice President Kamala Harris a bill for the same figure in October.”

“The state, which as an estimated 6,000 undocumented children under 16, will need an additional 1,065 teachers for English learners over the next five years, he wrote in his letter to Harris. He offered no specifics on where he got that figure.”

“’We cannot effectively budget or allocate critical resources when we have no accounting of the cost that illegal immigration places on our schools,’ the letter said.”

“State data shows that the percentage of English learners in the state, about 10%, hasn’t increased since the 2021-22 school year. But teachers in Tulsa have definitely noticed the influx of newcomers.”

“’Some of them just show up on Monday and they don’t speak any English,’ said one teacher in the district who did not want to be named in order to protect students. She often communicates with students through bilingual staff members. ‘I just hear the saddest stories every day. The kids are really sweet, but they’re afraid.’”

“She worries about what might happen if recent immigrants are unable to attend school.”

“’We provide coats,’ she said. ‘We provide groceries on the weekends.’”

“Norman, where about 8% of students are English learners, was among the many districts that didn’t submit any data to the state last summer. Regardless of their needs, Migliorino said, ‘educators invest in the students who show up in our district.’”

“Leaders of other districts, including the Santa Fe South charter schools, Bixby Public Schools and the Millwood school system, pushed back on Walters’ demands, saying they haven’t asked about families’ immigration status and don’t intend to start.”

“Bixby Superintendent Rob Miller told The 74 the proposed rule was ‘clearly unconstitutional.’”

“’Bixby will not comply,’ said Miller, an outspoken critic of Walters who is suing him for defamation.”

“He compared Walters’ plan to the state’s legal battle over a first-in-the-nation religious charter school. While the Oklahoma Supreme Court said the Catholic charter violates the law, the school and the state’s charter board have appealed that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court has not yet decided whether to hear the case.”

“’I believe they are trying to create a case for the Trump Supreme Court,’ he said.”

“In Plyler, a Texas school district sought to charge tuition to students not ‘legally admitted’ to the country. The U.S. Department of Education has long interpreted the court’s opinion to mean that states ‘cannot do anything to chill the atmosphere or to make people feel afraid to send their kids to school,’ Sugarman said.”

…

“The issue could prove appealing for the Supreme Court, which took a sharp right turn during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term. That ideological shift resulted in the end of federal abortion rights and the reversal of an opinion that gave federal agencies significant leeway to interpret the law.”

“’We have a different court now,’ said Sugarman of the Migration Policy Institute. ‘The court’s willingness to overturn legal precedent means that lots of things are on the table that we wouldn’t previously [have] thought were in play.’”

“The education department has until March to submit the rule to the legislature, where both the House and Senate must approve the measure for it to pass. If they don’t take action, the package automatically goes to the governor to sign.”

…

A recent ranking by U.S. News & World Report places Oklahoma 49^th out of 50 states in educational performance, mainly based on poor standardized test scores and graduation rates.

Doesn’t it make more sense for Superintendent Walters to focus on improving reading, writing, and problem-solving skills for his K-12 student population that worry about an undocumented population of young learner judged to be less than 1% of the overall public school enrollment in the state?

In the past, Walters has mandated Oklahoma schools to play a video that show him praying for President-elect Donald Trump.

He once told a CNN anchor, “The left has driven the Bible out of schools, driven prayer out of schools, and everything in education has gotten worse since.”

Walters was considered by President-elect Trump to serve as U.S. Education Secretary, but Trump selected Linda McMahon, a World Wrestling Entertainment co-founder, instead. One of Walters’s ideas was the creation of a new Office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism.

You can’t make this up, but all the while, kids struggle and suffer.

Til tomorrow. SVB