The Oklahoma House passed Senate Bill 1080 to help fund options for education in the state.

The bill modifies an existing state program to support public schools and give low-income families the opportunity of specialized education.

The bill increases to $50 million the amount of tax credits available for the program, with $25 million for public schools and $25 million for scholarships to private schools. The bill also adds transparency by increasing reporting requirements of the private schools’ scholarship granting organizations.

SB 1080 makes the following adjustments to the existing program:

• Adds public school foundations and non-foundational public school districts as eligible to receive donations under the same terms as existing public school donations.
• Allows all school districts to receive donations by removing geographic restrictions on districts eligible for donations.
• Raises annual tax credit cap to $25 million each for public schools and scholarships.

“The program is entirely privately funded and encourages those who can to give back to schools and support children with financial hardships or special needs,” said House Speaker Charles McCall, R-Atoka.

Democrats blasted the increase in funding for education.

“Our historic investment into public education still leaves Oklahoma in last place for per-student spending in our region,” said Rep. Melissa Provenzano, D-Tulsa. “Lawmakers know this but still decided to give a $25 million tax credit to private schools.

“Additionally, there will be long-term repercussions to the way the funding formula was scrambled this session, and we did so against the recommendations of policy ‘experts’.  Public schools continue to be underfunded because the Oklahoma Legislature would rather give tax cuts and credits to corporations than properly fund public education.”

Rep. John Waldron, D-Tulsa, suggested that lawmakers didn’t take the recent teacher strike seriously. “It is as though we began to fund our public schools after the 2018 teacher walkout and now our Oklahoma Education Turnaround is to go back to a policy of ignoring the importance of public education – not only to Oklahoma students but rural communities as well,” Waldron said.

Since 2014, Oklahoma has given public schools more access to private donations while making scholarships for private schools funded by tax-deductible private donations available to more families – without reducing public school spending. SB 1080 continues that by making more families and more public schools eligible for privately-funded support.

The Republican-led Senate also passed a bill to divert the ever-growing revenue from marijuana to education.

Senate Bill 229, also known as the Redbud School Funding Act, would tap into more than $30 million of medical marijuana tax revenue and the State Public Common School Building Equalization Fund to use the dollars as annual grants for more than 300 public school districts and brick-and-mortar charter schools that receive below average local tax revenue funding.

Authored by Sen. John Michael Montgomery, R-Lawton, the measure came on the heels of the State Board of Education’s decision to grant charter schools local property tax revenues, which would shift millions of dollars of funding away from local school districts. If signed by the governor, the Redbud School Funding Act would reverse this decision.

“This funding act creates equity for our public schools and gives a much-needed revenue boost to many districts across the state,” Montgomery said. “We’ve expanded funding for our public schools over the past five years, but this measure will create a continual source of revenue for districts that have traditionally had little access to local ad valorem dollars to construct and maintain their buildings. Oklahoma is one of only four states that doesn’t have an equalization fund to balance our school building dollars.”

The measure unanimously passed the House in April.

Also, the House passed a bill that would prohibit public schools, colleges, universities or CareerTech centers from installing mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations as a condition for admittance and from requiring only non-vaccinated populations to wear masks.

Senate Bill 658, authored by Sen. Rob Standridge, R-Norman, requires the State Department of Education and school districts to provide in any notice or publication provided to parents regarding immunization requests the immunization requirements of the school, including the requirement to either provide up-to-date immunization records or a completed exemption form. “Should the force of government be used to force citizens to do something they don’t want to do, or should it be used to empower the rights of citizens?” West asked. “This protects a student’s and a parent’s right to choose for themselves whether a vaccination is appropriate for them for their own personal health reasons or their religious or personal beliefs. This disallows discrimination against students and parents that choose to be exempt from such vaccinations.”

West said the measure is necessary as there has been a push for public schools and higher education institutions to require a “vaccine passport.”