Public schools

The Hill - Educators in Oklahoma are refusing a state order to incorporate the Bible into their lesson plans, setting up an inevitable showdown with the start of the school year just weeks away.  State Superintendent Ryan Walters last week released guidelines to schools for how they should be integrating the Bible into classrooms, saying educators who are against the initiative “will comply, and I will use every means to make sure of it.”

“I suspect that the first thing that will happen is he will target a specific school district or multiple school districts who he believes are not complying with his directive, those school districts will then have to make a choice as to whether to bend his whim or to sue,” said Rob Miller, superintendent of Bixby Public Schools...

Walters’s guidance, which follows a June announcement of the mandatory biblical curricula for grades 5 through 12, says that lessons on the Christian text should emphasize its historical context, literary significance and artistic and musical influence. The guidance also says a physical copy of the book should be in every classroom, along with copies of the Ten Commandments, the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

“To date, schools have been advised by legal counsel (School Board Association and State Attorney General) to not follow the guidance because it goes against current Oklahoma State Law,” said Lee Northcutt, superintendent of Caddo Public Schools, in an email.  The day the guidance was released, a lawsuit was filed against Walters by Joseph Price, a resident of Mayes County. Price says in the suit he is “a concerned citizen and parent of children attending public schools in Oklahoma,” adding that the order violates the separation of church and state.