Governor pushes apprenticeships, 180‑day school year and defends school‑choice tax credit

The governor said Oklahoma should expand internship and apprenticeship programs and pressed for changes to school‑year rules and school‑choice funding during a press appearance in February.

The governor urged lawmakers to support apprenticeship and internship models used by local charter schools, saying the state should help scale programs that let students split time between classroom and work. "I love that model as kids are starting to get acclimated to what's possible," he said.

He tied that push to other education priorities, arguing the state should restore a 180‑day instructional year and stop counting virtual days toward the required total. "Let's go back to a hundred and 80 days. Let's get rid of virtual days," he said, adding that some districts count teacher conferences and virtual days toward instructional totals.

The governor also defended a recently enacted $250 million school‑choice program (described in his remarks as a separate "bucket of money") and the tax provisions that fund it. He said the program was designed so some families receive up to $7,500 (for households under the stated threshold) and that "everybody gets up to $5,000 regardless of your income," and that the program does not reduce the core K‑12 education budget. "This is not affecting our education budget. This was a whole separate, bucket of money," he said.

The governor addressed an audit of Tulsa Public Schools, which he said uses data from an earlier administration. He said he called for the audit several years ago and expects it to show mismanagement. "I'm excited that the auditor's getting that out today, and we'll see what those findings are," he said, adding that the district has a new superintendent and that the audit concerns "a couple year old data."

On governance of the state education agency, the governor said he wants appointed State Board of Education members to focus on classroom outcomes and teachers rather than politics. He commented on a request that the attorney general issue an opinion about collecting immigration‑status information in schools, calling such collection wrong: "That's not the right thing to do. We're not gonna pick on kids."

Discussion points: expansion of internship/apprenticeship programs; restoring 180 instructional days and ending counting of virtual days; defending the structure and funding of the $250 million school‑choice program; imminent release of an audit of Tulsa Public Schools; expectations for newly appointed state board members.

No formal votes or binding directives were recorded during the press exchange. The governor said he will press the legislature on several items but did not cite any new orders or enacted rules.

Background and context: the governor referenced visits to local charter schools that use a four‑day classroom/four‑day work model and compared Oklahoma's instructional‑day rules with other states that require more days. He framed the school‑choice funding as separate from the state's $12,000,000,000 K‑12 spending figure (as stated in his remarks) and said the $250,000,000 allocation is intended to fund alternatives to traditional public schools.

The governor concluded by urging focus on classroom time and teacher support as paths to improve achievement rather than punitive measures aimed at students or families.