New Oklahoma schools superintendent rescinds mandate for Bible instruction in schools
OKLAHOMA CITY — OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma’s new public schools superintendent announced Wednesday that he is rescinding a mandate from his predecessor that required schools to integrate the Bible into students’ lesson plans.
Superintendent Lindel Fields said in a statement that he has “no plans to distribute Bibles or biblical character curriculum in classrooms.” Last year’s directive from former Superintendent Ryan Walters drew immediate condemnation from civil rights groups and triggered a lawsuit from a group of parents, teachers and religious leaders that is pending before the Oklahoma Supreme Court. It was to apply to students in grades 5 to 12.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt appointed Fields as superintendent after Walters resigned last month to take a job in the private sector.
Jacki Phelps, an attorney for the Oklahoma State Department of Education, said she intends to notify the court of the agency’s plan to vacate the mandate and seek a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
Many school districts across the state had decided not to comply with the biblical mandate.
A state Department of Education spokeswoman, Tara Thompson, said Fields believes the decision whether to incorporate the Bible into classroom instruction is one best left to individual districts and that spending money on Bibles is not the best use of taxpayer resources.
In March, Walters announced plans to partner with country music singer Lee Greenwood to solicit donations to bring Bibles into classrooms after a legislative committee rejected his request for $3 million to fund the effort. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit challenging the biblical mandate did not immediately comment.
Walters, a far-right Republican, made fighting “woke ideology,” banning certain books from school libraries and getting rid of “radical leftists” who he said were indoctrinating children in classrooms, a focal point of his administration. Since his election in 2020, he has imposed a number of mandates on public schools and worked to develop new social studies standards for K-12 public school students, including teaching conspiracy theories related to the 2020 presidential election. Those standards have been suspended pending a lawsuit challenging them moving forward.
Thompson said the agency plans to review all of Walters’ mandates, including requiring applicants for teaching jobs from California and New York to take an ideology exam, to determine whether those could also be rescinded.
“We need to revisit all of these mandates and provide clarity for schools going forward,” she said.
