Oklahoma School Board approves rule to gather immigration status data of students

The Oklahoma school board advanced a plan to require K-12 students and their parents to show immigration status when enrolling in public schools.

The approval for this rule by the board comes after State Superintendent Ryan Walters said he would enforce President Donald Trump's executive order to allow immigration agents into schools. However, there have been no instances of immigration agents going into schools in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma School Board Approves Rule to Gather Data on Students' Immigration Status

During the state's school board meeting on Tuesday, Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters said the state needs to account for how many students of "illegal immigrants" are in Oklahoma schools.

"I'm going to just start off by being crystal clear our rule around illegal immigration accounting is simply that it is to account for how many students of illegal immigrants are in our schools," said Walters. "Why do we need that account? Well, to be clear, we know that, at a minimum, the state of Oklahoma spent $474,000,000 to educate the children of illegal immigrants under the Biden administration. That [dollar amount] is personnel from inside the school year to meet the needs of those students those are numbers that we didn't have information on. That is, information that wasn't available to the state department wasn't available to the local district. We want to make sure that all that information is gathered so that we can make decisions on where resources go and where personnel go. And we can continue to make sure that Oklahoma is leading the country in education reform, but to do that,t you have to have the information you have to have the data around where your kids are coming from we will make sure that President Trump and his administration have this information have the information they need."

The board approved the rule that will move forward to the state legislature but could be challenged by some as a violation of Plyler v. Doe.

In 1982, the Supreme Court ruled that states cannot deny public education to children based on their immigration status. Walters suggests that the information about students' immigration status would not be used to deny them access to education, but rather to "account" for their presence in the system and to provide that information to law enforcement or the federal government if requested.

Walters clarified after the board of education meeting that students and their parents would both be required to supply documentation.

Rule Requiring Teachers to Take Naturalization Test For Teacher Certification:

The board also approved a rule requiring teachers to take the US naturalization test as a part of their teacher certification.

"Teachers will be required to take the US naturalization test to ensure that they understand the basics of America, American history, American government, and civics. What this does is ensure that every one of our teachers also meets the same requirements as every citizen in this country," said Walters.

Response from Schools:

Owasso

"Per the regulations that govern administrative rules, the Oklahoma State Board of Education’s proposed rule regarding citizenship status will need approval by the legislature to take effect. Currently, there is no enrollment data collected by the District that would identify the citizenship status of a parent or student. OPS does not intend to change this aspect of our enrollment practices without a law or regulation compelling us to do so. If there are any undocumented students in the district currently, they are treated with the same dignity and respect as every other student."

Jenks

We typically don’t do on camera interviews for “proposed” legislation and that’s all this is right now. It’s an idea that still has to pass the legislature and Governor’s desk. I can tell you that we do not currently collect any data from students that would identify citizenship status and we will not change that practice unless we are mandated by law to do so.

Broken Arrow

"Per the regulations that govern administrative rules, the OSBE’s proposed regulation regarding citizenship status will still need approval by the legislature to take effect. Currently, there is no enrollment data collected by our district that would identify a student’s citizenship status. We do not intend to change this practice absent a law or regulation compelling us to do so."

See More From Tuesday's Meeting

State Board approves new rules on immigration reporting, classical testing, school donations