StateImpact’s Logan Layden sat down with education reporter Beth Wallis for a breakdown of what education measures Oklahomans are going to get for their money after a contentious 2023 legislative session.

Walters repeatedly emphasized his focus on open communication with superintendents around the state. But when StateImpact sent out a survey to those superintendents, a much more complex picture emerged.

The Oklahoma legislature has been deadlocked for weeks as it hashes out a plan for education funding. StateImpact’s Beth Wallis sat down with Oklahoman newspaper education reporter Nuria Martinez-Keel to talk about the events at the Capitol that led up to this moment.

The governor and the Legislature have been at odds over the state’s Medicaid agency, the Oklahoma Health Care Authority. That fight came to a head last week, when the Senate booted the agency director from his Secretary of Health position. StateImpact’s Catherine Sweeney talks with Tres Savage, the editor of nonprofit outlet NonDoc, about what led lawmakers to reject Secretary Kevin Corbett's re-instatement.

Run. Hide. Fight.

Those were the words that ended the first of several text updates from OU’s emergency alert system on the night of April 7. 

The Norman Police Department had received calls that appeared to be coming from OU’s campus. The caller told police there was a shooting at the Bizzell Memorial Library and that one of the caller’s friends had been shot. And in secondary calls to Norman dispatch, gunshots can be heard. 

But as it turns out, it was a swatting incident — that is, a big hoax.

The state ranks 46th in the nation for nurses per capita, and of course, the pandemic has only made that worse. 

But all along, one of the major contributing factors to that shortage has been nursing school. There are a finite number of slots offered, and Oklahoma hasn’t had enough. Why? It’s complicated.

Even though funding measures advocated for by 2018 Oklahoma Teacher Walkout participants were stymied largely by Republican lawmakers, Oklahoma’s GOP is now authoring record-level education funding measures that include teacher raises, along with a slew of labor rights bills for educators. But the funding bills are far from a done deal — in fact, due to a disagreement in how those bills should operate, there could be no deal at all.

Oklahoma offers pregnant residents special Medicaid coverage. That coverage used to last only 60 days after delivery, but under a new policy, that coverage will run for a full year instead. StateImpact’s Logan Layden and Catherine Sweeney discuss how the policy will affect thousands of new parents in Oklahoma.

House Bill 2177 is making its way through the statehouse. It purports to ban gender-affirming care for children and teens in Oklahoma. Supporters say children and teens aren’t equipped to make life-altering health decisions for themselves. One provision says no health facility receiving state funds can administer gender-affirming care to anyone of any age. Another provision would ban insurance companies from covering gender-affirming care, again, for all Oklahomans, no matter how old they are.

Recent pushes from the Oklahoma legislature to target queer issues in schools and medicine have mobilized some Oklahomans to fight back. The Transgender Action Choir is one group lifting their voices to speak up.