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Ray Carter | March 5, 2025
Special-needs scholarship reform headed to Oklahoma Senate floor
Ray Carter
Oklahoma families could face less red tape before accessing a state scholarship program for children with special needs under legislation now headed to the floor of the Oklahoma Senate.
Since 2010, Oklahoma’s Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarships for Students with Disabilities (LNH) program has allowed students to use state tax dollars to pay for private-school tuition. Those eligible for the program are children with special needs, such as autism.
However, children cannot currently receive an LNH scholarship until they have been in the public-school system for at least one year, even when a local school cannot properly serve a child and parents have identified a private school that can.
Senate Bill 105, by state Sen. Julie Daniels, eliminates that requirement.
“We’re removing the requirement that the student can only access the scholarship after one year in public school,” said Daniels, R-Bartlesville.
Supporters said the legislation would benefit the families of children with special needs and reduce the workload of officials in public schools.
“This bill actually boils down to something very simple, and it’s up to you to decide where you want to fall,” said state Sen. Adam Pugh, R-Edmond. “It is simply if a family has decided that they need a system of supports that they don’t believe that the public-school system, for any number of reasons, is currently the right provider, should we make that family go to that school district anyway for one year, or should we allow them to just get the assessment of need and then take a Lindsey Nicole Henry scholarship to go somewhere where they think that child’s needs will be met?”
State Sen. Kristen Thompson, R-Edmond, noted that Oklahoma has a shortage of special-education teachers, and said it makes little sense to force those teachers to handle an increased workload for a year while a student becomes qualified for an LNH scholarship.
“We’re removing the requirement that the student can only access the scholarship after one year in public school.” —State Sen. Julie Daniels (R-Bartlesville)
“We are forcing kiddos into a classroom with teachers that we may not have enough support staff for and other things,” Thompson said.
She said SB 105 is an “easy way” to “lighten the load on our special-education teachers” while also meeting the needs of children.
Democratic lawmakers on the committee opposed the bill, but their comments focused largely on their opposition to the entire scholarship program rather than the specific language of the bill.
State Sen. Carri Hicks, D-Oklahoma City, noted that, once qualified, children receive the scholarship throughout their K-12 years if a family desires. She argued that special needs may go away over time.
Daniels noted that is not the case for most diagnosed challenges. Children eligible for an LNH scholarship have challenges in the categories of autism, deaf-blindness, emotionally disturbed, hearing impaired + deaf, intellectual disability, traumatic brain injury, and vision impairment, among other things.
Of the categories involved for an LNH scholarship, only speech impairment is normally a condition that may disappear over time after interventions. However, LNH scholarships are based on the amount of funding normally set aside for a student with a specific need. The annual scholarships range from $4,196 to $22,236 per child. The LNH scholarship for those with speech impairments is at the lowest end of that range.
If the same child was educated in public school, far more taxpayer funds would be expended on that student.
“This bill actually boils down to something very simple.” —State Sen. Adam Pugh (R-Edmond)
According to financial data reported by schools to the state’s Oklahoma Cost Accounting System (OCAS), per-pupil revenue in Oklahoma public schools reached $9,600,703,488 in new revenue in the 2023-2024 school year. Since student enrollment was 698,923 in the 2023-2024 school year, that comes out to an average of $13,736 per pupil.
In the 2023-2024 school year, the most recent for which data are available, the LNH program provided $12.2 million in scholarships to 1,557 students. That means the average LNH scholarship that year was $7,866 per student.
SB 105 passed the Senate Appropriations Committee on an 18-6 vote. The bill previously passed the Senate Education Committee on a 9-3 vote.
The legislation now proceeds to the floor of the Oklahoma Senate.
Director, Center for Independent Journalism
Ray Carter is the director of OCPA’s Center for Independent Journalism. He has two decades of experience in journalism and communications. He previously served as senior Capitol reporter for The Journal Record, media director for the Oklahoma House of Representatives, and chief editorial writer at The Oklahoman. As a reporter for The Journal Record, Carter received 12 Carl Rogan Awards in four years—including awards for investigative reporting, general news reporting, feature writing, spot news reporting, business reporting, and sports reporting. While at The Oklahoman, he was the recipient of several awards, including first place in the editorial writing category of the Associated Press/Oklahoma News Executives Carl Rogan Memorial News Excellence Competition for an editorial on the history of racism in the Oklahoma legislature.
Ray Carter is the director of OCPA’s Center for Independent Journalism. He has two decades of experience in journalism and communications. He previously served as senior Capitol reporter for The Journal Record, media director for the Oklahoma House of Representatives, and chief editorial writer at The Oklahoman. As a reporter for The Journal Record, Carter received 12 Carl Rogan Awards in four years—including awards for investigative reporting, general news reporting, feature writing, spot news reporting, business reporting, and sports reporting. While at The Oklahoman, he was the recipient of several awards, including first place in the editorial writing category of the Associated Press/Oklahoma News Executives Carl Rogan Memorial News Excellence Competition for an editorial on the history of racism in the Oklahoma legislature.
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