By Emma Murphy | Reporter
“This policy appears to solve no demonstrated problem while creating a very real one. Schools that planned responsibly are being forced to change course after the school year has begun. Employees have already been hired. Food has already been purchased. Taxpayer dollars have already been committed. And at the end of all of it, children who were being fed may now go without a meal.” - David Bullard of the Oklahoma State Department of Education’s decision to stop a meal program
A water level marker at Cedar Lake near Hinton, Okla., Wednesday, July 15, 2026. (Photo by Nate Billings/For Oklahoma Voice)
By Barbara Hoberock
There is no link between the construction of two dams and declining water levels at a lake west of Oklahoma City, according to the findings of a report released by a state agency tasked with managing water.
The reduction in water levels at Cedar Lake is more likely caused by a drop in aquifer levels related to homeowners’ domestic wells, according to the Oklahoma Water Resources Board’s 69-page report, which was distributed to some lawmakers and others.
But residents of the lakefront community located about 45 miles west of Oklahoma City and an independent hydrologist dispute the Water Resource Board’s findings. They said the agency’s report is riddled with inaccuracies and not based on science.
A student picks out an apple in the school cafeteria at Thelma R. Parks Elementary in Oklahoma City on Aug. 13, 2025. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)
Frustrated districts, ‘blindsided’ lawmakers: Inside the ending of an Oklahoma school supper program
By Nuria Martinez-Keel
For eight years, Hartshorne Public Schools has designed its bus schedules, personnel contracts, lunch times and school hours around serving a late-afternoon supper to students.
An Oklahoma Highway Patrol vehicle is pictured. (Photo by Kyle Phillips/For Oklahoma Voice)
By Emma Murphy
Oklahoma law enforcement agencies’ partnerships with federal immigration forces have resulted in the arrests of over 1,800 people, the majority of whom have no criminal history, records show.
ICYMI
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