OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — Although school districts across Green Country say they can't afford Ryan Walters' new lunch mandate, the state superintendent disagrees.
In fact, Walters said they're gaslighting Oklahomans.
Local News
Tulsa-area schools say OSDE's lunch funding mandate comes with hefty price tag
2 News Oklahoma's Stef Manchen sat down with Walters' to understand how the mandate came to be and how schools will be expected to follow it.
Stef: Can you give context as to where the mandate came from?
Walters: There were several mothers that were asking me about ‘you know why do we continue to see these lunch bills at the end of the month, is that not covered by the costs we pay into the school district?’ And you know it was one of those things where it was like that’s a really great point, right? As we began to look at it, we look at parents and taxpayers are paying taxes locally for school lunches, they pay them to the federal government which comes back if for school lunch programs, hundreds of millions of dollars worth and yet we have districts across the state who say were gonna charge you again for those lunches, we’re not going to cover them.
Stef: Some of the school districts we’ve talked to in the Tulsa metro said they hadn’t heard from you directly. Can you comment on if schools were involved in this decision and how, what communication you had with them?
Walters: Yeah, sure, we told them what they need to do. I mean, it’s really unfortunate that I have to sit here and say listen, you should actually feed kids at your school. So I’m happy to walk them through that and help them understand that instead of hiring their buddies, instead of trying to create more administrative positions, they should actually value the kids in their district and allocate their budget accordingly.
Green Country Schools respond to mandate:
Stef: So is it about children being fed at school or is it about getting rid of these administrative positions?
Walters: It’s both. It’s two fold. Yeah, I mean they should be getting rid of these administrative positions a long time ago. I mean, first of all, there's no reason we should have more administrators now than we did years ago. I've slashed red tape here in the agency. We require less of districts from from red tape perspective. The Trump administration is slashing regulations at the federal level. The Federal Department of Education is going away. They have less paperwork to fill out. They have less administrative work to do, but they want to continue to grow. Administrative costs because that's what government does. They grow bureaucracy unless you fight it. And so that has to happen, but listen, they also should have been feeding the kids from the beginning. I don't know how this isn't one of the top priorities of every district in the state of Oklahoma to say the kids are required to be here.
Stef: Is it your understanding that most schools are requiring that students pay for lunches?
Walters: No, most schools are covering this.
Stef: If these students are still getting lunch, why this mandate?
Walters: They’re gaslighting you. Students are not getting lunches. Again, they're making up the most nonsensical arguments I've ever heard. Either the kids are getting fed every day or they're not. I mean, there's no in between here. There's no gray area either. The kids are getting their lunches every day and by the way, part of this mandate is they're gonna provide healthier school lunches.
Stef: As state superintendent, do you have authority to tell these districts how to spend the money that they have?
Walters: Absolutely. They have to submit their budgets through me which has to be approved by the state department for them to receive their accreditation. So that’s the process that we will be using to ensure that they comply with this mandate.
Watch our full interview here:
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