And according to a newly filed Senate Joint Resolution, Senate Republicans may agree.
Since the board's February meeting, the three new board members appointed by Governor Kevin Stitt — Mike Tinney, Ryan Deatherage and Chris Van Dehende — have repeatedly raised concerns about the process of voting on the new standards.
It was revealed to the public after the vote that the standards had been updated to include "discrepancies in 2020 election results."
Before the meeting, the department distributed a packet with a copy of the email sent to board members at 4:01 p.m. the afternoon before the standards vote. Walters told the board the documents had also been sent to the legislature.
That information ended up in a Senate Joint Resolution filed Thursday by Education Chair Sen. Adam Pugh (R-Edmond) to reject the standards outright.
Senate Joint Resolution 20 also notes:
- Questions around transparency of the standards adoption process
- The "significant" cost, estimated to be [$33 million], to implement the standards with new curriculum and textbooks
- Stitt and the three new board members' request for the standards to be returned to the board
The resolution must pass both chambers by May 1 to take effect.
Walters' office did not respond to a request for comment before publication.
At the meeting, Walters chastised board members for comments to the press about a lack of transparency in the approval process. All three members responded.
"I think this whole issue would have gone by if we would have just slowed down the process and let us understand what was in there," Deatherage said. "And quite frankly, we may have agreed with what was in there."
At the February meeting, Deatherage requested more time to review the standards. Walters falsely told board members that to make legislative deadlines, the standards needed to be approved that day.
"I do believe that that was [misleading]," Deatherage said. "So I feel deceived on that."
Walters defended the approval process and pointed to the recent appointment of the board members as part of the problem.
"To be clear, I don't control when the governor puts you on the board," Walters said. "You guys were placed on the board at the very end of the process that we had planned out for over 10 months. It has always been the superintendent for over 20 years who ultimately makes a decision on what is in the standards and how it is presented to the board."
Tinney said when he learned he was going to be on the board, he downloaded the standards and read them.
"That's what I thought I was voting on, was what I downloaded and reviewed," Tinney said. "That was what was posted for [the] public. … What was on the posting and what I was studying beforehand had been changed, and that was without my knowledge."
Walters reiterated the revised standards had been in the email attachment board members were sent the afternoon before the meeting.
"I can't make you read," Walters said. "I can't make you do the research before you vote, but here's what I'm going to say. And my expectation is to not have board members lie about a process and create a fake controversy."
Van Denhende responded to Walters' characterization of the board members' concerns.
"[To] call it a fake controversy is disingenuous," Van Denhende said. "It is a controversy because the changes were not known to the public or the people that were involved in developing the baseline standards, and they feel there was a bait and switch."
Walters has repeatedly framed the addition of the new social studies standards as part of the process, resulting from public comments. During a press conference following the meeting, a reporter who reviewed an open records request said there were no public comments that suggested adding a standard about election discrepancies.
"You're looking at the written comment," Walters responded. "We had the focus groups, we had a lot of discussions that were going on. … Ultimately, it was up to me to make the final decisions of what are we going to put in."
