Maybe other states have done this, too, but this seems worth noting:
The Oklahoma Department of Education has announced that it will launch an “Office of Religious and Patriotism” to protect the religious practices of students, teachers and parents.
In an announcement Tuesday, the state education department said the office will seek to protect students, faculty and parents as they “practice their religion freely in all aspects” and will investigate “abuses to individual religious freedom or displays of patriotism.”
Specific guidance related to the office will be sent to Oklahoma public schools in the near future and will ensure that “the right to pray in schools is safeguarded.”
State Superintendent Ryan Walters claimed that “our nation’s public schools have tragically been ground zero for the erosion of religious liberty across our country” over the past few decades.
“The radical left never misses a chance to co- opt the teacher unions and their minions to indoctrinate our children against traditional values of faith and family, seeking to attack any display of faith or religion or patriotism,” Walters said in a statement.
“It is no coincidence that the dismantling of faith and family values in public schools directly correlates with declining academic outcomes in our public schools.”
Walters said he looks forward to “working with the incoming Trump Administration” to “aggressively pursue education policies that will improve academic outcomes and give our children a better future.”
Not everyone is pleased. The Freedom From Religion Foundation responded on X, by stating:
Students have always had the right to pray. No one is trying to take that away. This dystopian “office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism” is about indoctrination and forced prayer in schools.
Stay tuned.
