OKLAHOMA CITY ( KFOR ) — At an emergency-called meeting Friday afternoon, Oklahoma State School Board members voted to hire a new lawyer to serve as their legal counsel, and also allowed a legislator to sit in on their executive session discussion for the first time since barring them from entering earlier this year.
The Oklahoma State Board of Education (OSBE) had just two items on its agenda for Friday’s emergency meeting.
One of them was an executive session for the board to discuss the ongoing lawsuit it is facing over its Bible-teaching mandate.
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The other item included a vote the board took to hire a new outside law firm to serve as the board’s legal counsel, after Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s Office chose not to renew the board’s contract with its former legal counsel, after she advised them not to allow legislators to sit in on executive session discussions.
“The largest budgetary item in the state of Oklahoma is the State Department of Ed,” said State Senator Mary Boren (D-Norman).