Advocacy group urges Oklahoma State Department of Education to find larger meeting space for public accessibility
OKLAHOMA CITY (KOKH) — An advocacy group is sending a letter to the Oklahoma State Department of Education, requesting their monthly board meetings be held in a different location, they claim the current room is too small,
Inside the OSDE building, the State Department of Education holds their monthly board meetings, and on meeting days, the outside is packed with people waiting to possibly get into the meeting, and several of them are forced to wait outside or in the hallway due to a lack of space.
Defense of Democracy, a Nonpartisan Advocacy Group is sending a letter to OSDE, requesting the board relocate their monthly meetings to be accessible to all Oklahomans,
"I just wanted to open up the space to get more diverse voices in the room," said Tori Caswell with Defense of Democracy, "Diversity is our biggest asset as a community, as a nation, as a state, and so we need every voice in the room."
Caswell says she attends the monthly meetings and sees parents unable to get in often,
"The line is full of people that are in their 70s and 80s, taking up the room, taking up the spots to speak, and the people that have to get their children to school are unable to get there early enough," she said.
The letter cites violations to the Open Meetings Act, saying numerous citizens were either turned away due to capacity issues or told that they could sit on the floor,
"We know that there's plenty of large spaces available at the Capitol complex and so ideally there would be a space that's available for all the people that want to attend that want to engage in the discourse of the meeting and for the press," said Caswell.
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State Superintendant of Education, Ryan Walters, told Fox 25 back in August that they were actively looking for a bigger space to hold the meetings, but this month's meeting scheduled for Thursday will still be held in the same room at OSDE,
"Moving forward, you're gonna hear additional announcements from us on how to make this much more available to even more people because again, I want people to be involved," Walters said, "I want these discussions to happen."
OSDE sent Fox 25 this statement regarding the letter from Defense of Democracy,
Despite the fever dreams of left-wing activists, we are in full compliance with the law. It's a shame some folks are more concerned with disrupting open meetings than they are with improving student outcomes.
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