The Oklahoman first reported Wednesday the meeting agenda was posted on OSDE’s website 20 minutes late. According to the Open Meeting Act, agendas must be posted at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting, which was set to begin at 1 p.m. on Thursday.
The Oklahoman then reported Thursday morning it had obtained emails in which the board’s attorney told members the late agenda posting may not have met statutory requirements. According to The Oklahoman, State Superintendent Ryan Walters called off the meeting late last night.
In a statement to StateImpact, Walters said the meeting was postponed out of an “abundance of caution.”
“Due to a technical issue, the OSBE Agenda for March was posted on the internet 19 minutes late. The Agenda was timely posted at OSDE headquarters where the meeting is held,” Walters said in a statement. “The agenda was sent to OMES for posting ahead of the deadline. Board counsel advised the meeting could continue. However, some OSBE members expressed reservation due to a potential Open Meetings [sic] Act violation.”
A spokesperson for OMES disputed the characterization of the late agenda posting in a statement to StateImpact. According to Public Information Manager Christa Helfrey, OSDE staff emailed the agenda six minutes before deadline to an OMES employee “embedded within OSDE and [who] is managed by OSDE daily.”
That employee posted the agenda within a half hour of receiving it.
“It’s important to note, OSDE is responsible for the development of its meetings and agendas and allowing enough reasonable time to post those agendas so that the public may receive and attend the open meeting,” Helfrey said. “To characterize this as an OMES error is dishonest and misleading. We also did not receive any media inquiries related to this error before other outlets published.”
Thursday’s meeting was likely to feature controversy over last month’s passage of proposed Social Studies standards. First reported by NonDoc, the standards had been quietly changed after the public comment period to include points on “discrepancies in 2020 elections results.”
In a statement to StateImpact, Walters denies the changes were made at the eleventh hour and said the new standards were included in the packet given to board members — a claim at least one board member disputes in the NonDoc article. The changes were not mentioned in the meeting presentation given to the board by department staff.
Amid calls from new board member Bryan Deatherage to postpone the vote on the standards, Walters falsely told members at the meeting that to make legislative deadlines, the standards needed to be approved that day.
Wednesday, The Oklahoman reported Deatherage and another new member, Michael Tinney, requested an item to be put on the agenda to discuss the February meeting’s standards vote, among other requests. According to the posted agenda, those items were left off.
At the February meeting, the three new board members recently appointed by Gov. Kevin Stitt pushed back against the policy that only Walters can decide what goes on the agenda.
In response, Stitt and legislative leaders put forward a bill allowing State Board of Education members to put items on the agenda. The bill passed the House Floor Wednesday and can now be considered in the Senate.
The board will now meet at its next regularly scheduled meeting, April 24.
StateImpact Oklahoma is a partnership of Oklahoma’s public radio stations which relies on contributions from readers and listeners to fulfill its mission of public service to Oklahoma and beyond. Donate online.
Copyright 2025 KGOU
