Walters says Oklahoma education department is developing discipline policies

(The Center Square) – Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Instruction said he will be creating guidelines for every district on discipline.

“You can go across the state and hear stories from parents but the research is also clear,” Ryan Walters said during Thursday’s State Board of Education meeting. “A disruptive classroom environment makes it very difficult for students to achieve the academic gains that are possible.”

Walters said other states went “the other direction.”

“California announced sweeping measures that are going to prohibit suspensions, even when kids are violent towards teachers and violent towards each other,” Walters said. “We’ve seen President Biden and we’ve seen the former president Obama send guidelines to states and the schools to limit suspensions, to limit discipline actions in schools.”

No timetable was given as to when the policy would be released.

Walters also said administrators have reviewed the curriculum regarding the history of Israel.

“We believe it’s essential to be clear on this issue,” Walters said. “Our young people don’t need to be confused on this. It should be crystal-clear on where the country stands and where basic human emotions, civility stand, so we want to make sure this indoctrination we are seeing in higher ed toward pushing this anti-Israel, anti-Semitic bullying doesn’t go on in K-12.”

The board of education denied requests from the Moore and Cushing school districts to change the gender or sexual orientation of a student.

“There is obviously a concerted effort to try to threaten, intimidate, bully schools into adopting this transgender ideology,” Walters said. “This is again what we are seeing as part of this war on our schools to inject this ideology.”

A group of parents addressed the school board during the public comment session in support of allowing transgender students to be identified as they want in schools, calling gender issues “simple biology.”