TULSA, Okla. — After the state superintendent's strong claims about how Oklahoma school districts were spending their money, 2 News dug into the data to uncover the truth.
2 News Oklahoma's Stef Manchen spoke with Walters about his new lunch mandate:
What we found: some half-truths, some full-truths, and some incorrect claims.
WATCH: Fact Checking: 2 News sits down with Ryan Walters
Claim 1: School lunches cost about $3 a day, which would run a district nearly $500 a year per student. The state department gives districts about $13,000 per student, which would be plenty of funding to cover lunches.
ACCURATE: According to the Oklahoma Cost Accounting System, that $13,000 figure is correct. As far as the cost for lunches, districts like Owasso, Union, Norman and Edmond charge anywhere from $3.35 to $3.90 for school lunches.
Claim 2: Students are not getting lunches.
FALSE: According to Hunger Free Oklahoma, that is not the case. Thanks to the Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP program, nearly 849 schools and about 300,000 students across the state have access to free breakfast and lunch at school.
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Tulsa-area schools say OSDE's lunch funding mandate comes with hefty price tag
Claim 3: Districts get billions in funding. They're spending millions on their top administrators' salaries.
MIX: Each district is funded differently, based on a variety of factors, including enrollment. As far as spending on salaries, 2 News was unable to confirm that each of the 509 districts across the state are spending millions on their administrators. It's also unclear if Walters meant millions are spent on one individual administrators salary, or a combination of all administrators salaries.
Claim 4: There is a 5% spending cap for district budgets on administrators' salaries.
FALSE: State law says districts with more than 1,500 students cannot spend more than 5% of their budget on administrative costs.
Claim 5: Oklahoma schools are spending more than 50% of every dollar in education on administrative costs, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
UNVERIFIED: 2 News could not find this data.
Claim 6: Administrators' salaries have increased 14% over the last four years.
UNVERIFIED: While 2 News was unable to go through or locate every Oklahoma district's administrators' salaries, we did find Broken Arrow's breakdown.
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