Oklahomans school Republican on what he should have known

Irate parents taught an Oklahoma lawmaker a life lesson I bet he’ll never forget: Do not mess with the education of public school children who have been diagnosed with a disability.

Republican Dusty Deevers emerged last week from the dustup with parents, educators and therapists with a metaphorical black eye, reminding him that Oklahomans don’t like schoolyard bullies.

In case you missed all the hubbub, somehow Deevers got the idiotic idea that too many Oklahoma children are receiving special education services through the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA. That’s the federal law that protects children’s right to a “free appropriate public education” and guarantees that they have access to special education and early intervention services.

He pointed to estimates indicating that as many as 1 in 6 Oklahoma school children are currently on Individualized Education Programs, better known as an IEP, which provides them access to services such as speech, language, physical, occupational and behavioral therapies to help them succeed in school.

Generally, legislators have tacitly acknowledged that these programs help students succeed academically even though state and federal leaders have long provided only a fraction of the funding necessary to operate them at their maximum potential.

But rather than urging his colleagues to ramp up funding and bolster support for those children, the lawmaker from Elgin hatched a harebrained plan to reduce participation numbers by removing eligibility for in-school services. The proposed law would have required parents to seek services on their own dime after school hours. If parents couldn’t afford it or find qualified therapists, too bad, so sad.

The plan also would have prohibited Medicaid from helping to pay for those in-school services as well as covering the costs of sight screenings.

At first the proposal flew under the radar, obscured among nearly 3,100 bills filed for consideration for the 2025 legislative session, but then the ramifications of Deevers’ plan began to dawn on folks and outrage exploded on social media.

Deevers swiftly discovered that there might be one thing almost as scary as incurring the wrath of God — Oklahomans furious that legislators are impeding on their “parental rights.” (You know, that popular buzzword that Republicans like to bandy about.)

Deevers tried to clean up the mess by promising to amend the bill because he said it wasn’t doing what he intended. However, he dumped gasoline on the raging Dumpster fire thanks to a lengthy post on X that revealed that he believes we might have “far over-diagnosed students;” that he wants to audit IEP spending; protect “parental rights;” force schools to stop providing students on IEPs “hormonal birth control;” and exclude “non-educationally necessary services.”

That unleashed a second torrent of anger because any parent who has a child on an IEP knows that schools are not willy-nilly thinking up ways to place children into services they don’t need. And that anybody who has set foot in a school knows how rare it is to hear parents complain that a school is doing too much and overperforming.

It’s much more common to hear they’re not doing enough.

They know that to get a child evaluated for a disability takes a considerable amount of advocacy work from adults in a child’s life, numerous meetings with the school, months of evaluations and tons of paperwork.

Based on the complexities of even qualifying for an IEP, I’d say probably more students need specialized services than are receiving them. Our numbers should probably be much higher.

They also know that parents have an enormous amount of rights when it comes to how children with disabilities are educated. Schools don’t randomly place children on IEPs without parental involvement. Parents have to agree to the placement and can also choose to end those services at any time. Parents get to set the parameters of how often they meet with school leaders and determine how often their child receives services. They can demand a meeting at any time to discuss perceived problems.

And anybody with an iota of sense knows that IEPs are not prescription pads that allow educators to dole out medication or birth control. Medical doctors prescribe that, not speech therapists. In fact, it’s such a farfetched idea, I’ve never heard of that being a concern in Oklahoma. Schools are required to operate within the confines of the IEPs, which parents must sign off on.

But who are we to allow facts to stop some good old fashioned fear mongering?

To Deevers’ credit, he appears to have taken parental feedback seriously. Last week, he announced plans to withdraw the bill and vowed that it wouldn’t be considered in the Legislature.

I hope that more lawmakers will take note, because we often see an unwillingness to take public feedback seriously and plenty of excuses why it should be ignored. A common excuse is they’re only interested in feedback from their constituents.

It’s time for that foolhardy mindset to stop, and the voices of Oklahomans to be taken seriously. People affected by legislation don’t necessarily live within a specific lawmaker’s legislative boundaries, but their tax dollars are keeping the lights on in every office.

I’m glad their message came through loud and clear: Picking on 116,000 children that have diagnosed disabilities is just wrong. And their Legislature shouldn’t be weaponized against them.

Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com.