By Brandon Carey OSSBA Staff Attorney I’ve written before about my experiences as a father of black children. As a white male, I’m certainly not qualified to truly speak to the experiences of marginalized communities.  But my experiences, as removed as they may be, might help illuminate others who, like myself, have not directly experienced discrimination and oppression. Being a witness to the […]

By Brandon Carey  OSSBA Staff Attorney On May 7, 2021, the Oklahoma governor signed House Bill 1775, which included a detailed list of what teachers can’t teach in an Oklahoma classroom regarding race and sex. Fortunately for educators and for school districts, the toxic rhetoric around the bill bore little resemblance to the actual bill language.  Coming […]

Shawn Hime, executive director of the Oklahoma State School Boards Association, statement on passage of Senate Bill 229:   “SB 229 is a monumental bill years in the making. Oklahoma is one of only four states that fails to provide state funding to help schools with capital needs, and our state has notable equity gaps in student access to quality, […]

OSSBA Attorney Brandon Carey, right, recently attended a downtown Oklahoma City protest with his 14-year-old daughter Kyriel. Below is their story. Photo credit: By the House Helps By Brandon Carey OSSBA Staff Attorney I’ve always been interested in civil rights. It’s why I went to law school, and it’s why I continue practicing law. I’ve […]

I’ve never sat awake in bed at night, restless and worried that skin color might determine whether my children reach their dreams. Not once.   I’ve never had a talk with my children about how wearing a hoodie or sagging pants or head covering might make them a target. Not once.  My heart has never raced when the phone rang, […]

OSSBA Executive Director Shawn Hime offered the following statement on today’s state budget actions: “Today’s budget news is deeply concerning for education leaders, and I want to be clear: This is the worst possible time to earmark money for special projects or try to score political brownie points. Gov. Stitt had the opportunity today to take a strong […]

Oklahoma’s persistent education investment gap will narrow thanks to more than $900 million in state investments in public school students and a strong economy in recent years, but the state will likely remain last in the region on what it spends per student for at least the next few years.  A new report from the National Center for Education Statistics analyzes data from the 2016-2017 school year to detail state-by-state […]

Parrott Named to OSSBA Board A longtime El Reno school board member is the newest member of the governing board of the Oklahoma State School Boards Association. Dorrie Parrott recently was elected as an OSSBA Region 10 director by her fellow school board members in the region. “Dr. Parrott is an excellent addition to the […]

Two legislators were honored Aug. 23 for their support of public education with the Oklahoma State School Boards Association’s Legislator of the Year Award.  Sen. Dewayne Pemberton, R-Muskogee, and Rep. Mark McBride, R-Moore, served as leaders of education appropriations subcommittee in their respective legislative bodies during the most recent legislative session. They accepted the award during the […]

  Oklahoma’s public schools are poised to hire more teachers and make other classroom investments thanks to back-to-back years of increased education funding, but teacher recruitment and retention remain challenging, according to a new survey from the Oklahoma State School Boards Association.   Schools had 596 teaching vacancies on Aug. 1 while districts reported mixed plans […]