Oklahoma CareerTech oversees 29 technology centers across 60 campuses statewide. It takes about 500,000 yearly enrollments and offers courses to students in about 400 school districts and adults.

And about 7,500 students are sitting on a waitlist to get in.

To tackle the waitlist, the Oklahoma Legislature allocated $26.7 million in new one-time funds for the agency this year. The money was recently disbursed to schools and is now being used across the state for facility upgrades, expanded programming and more.

CareerTech Director Brent Haken is grateful for the boost, but he cautions against considering it a windfall that would fully eliminate the waitlist. He plans to return to the legislature next year with the same pitch — that increasing base funding is the only way to fully reach the thousands of Oklahomans hoping for a spot in a CareerTech program.

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Recruiting long-term care CNAs can be challenging, and fighting consistent turnover is costly. But groups in Oklahoma are finding ways to invest in these workers’ education and futures.

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Oklahoma students face many barriers to high school graduation, even more so since the pandemic. But educators at two Oklahoma City area high schools have teamed up with a new community organization to tackle root causes of student behavioral issues.

Because of the efforts of educators and nonprofits, communities are finding solutions to help young people in Oklahoma City avoid violence and turn their lives around.

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“Summer slide” is the phenomenon of students losing ground academically during the summer break. It usually refers to learning loss in reading and math, though other areas of child development can be affected, like behavior.

On average, students lose about 20% of their school-year gains in reading and 27% in math.

StateImpact visited two Oklahoma schools that provide free, multi-week summer programming to see how districts hope to make a dent in learning loss.

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More than 600,000 Oklahomans on Medicaid are now seeing their care coordinated by private insurance companies. Proponents say the change incentivizes preventative care, and its rollout has been going well. But, it has caused problems for some Oklahomans on Medicaid and smaller providers.

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