By Barbara Hoberock | Senior reporter
“Our fluoride emissions limit per ton of metal produced will be much lower than any other primary aluminum plant in the U.S.” - Ziad Fares of a proposed Inola smelter
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.
The southeast Oklahoma district stretched its school day to seven hours instead of the typical six, adding academic enrichment and homework help time after 2 p.m. to qualify for a federal program that pays for the third meal, Superintendent Jason Lindley said.
Two weeks into Hartshorne’s school year, the Oklahoma State Department of Education shocked districts statewide when it announced it would discontinue the extended-day third meal option on Oct. 1, when the next federal fiscal year begins. The agency cited a lack of compliance with federal rules as the reason the program, known as Expanded Learning Time, must come to an end.
Lawmakers’ desks on the Oklahoma House floor are pictured June 1, 2026 at the state Capitol in Oklahoma City. (Photo by Emma Murphy/Oklahoma Voice)
OPINION
By Janelle Stecklein
It sure feels like Oklahoma leaders are in the business of cherrypicking which officials they want to make an example of these days.
The Page Belcher Federal Building, pictured March 19, 2025, houses a post office and the courthouse for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma in Tulsa. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)
By Emma Murphy
A federal judge on Thursday granted Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s request to have a lawsuit seeking to halt construction of a $4 billion aluminum smelter in Inola be heard at the state level.
A fifth grader reads a book at Positive Tomorrows school in Oklahoma City on Aug. 17. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)
By Nuria Martinez-Keel
The selection of key pieces of Oklahoma’s high-stakes reading law is underway in a process that likely will straddle two governors and state superintendents.
Three states this year have enacted laws that require or allow schools to use panic alarms to quickly summon emergency responders. Ten other states have such laws and a dozen more are considering them. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)
By Robbie Sequeira
Three states this year have enacted laws that require or allow schools to use mobile, wearable, wireless or silent panic alarms to quickly summon emergency responders.
ICYMI
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