House Bill 1280 significantly alters local school district budgeting - removing local control to make the best decisions for students.

The bill sounds good on its face: it requires a district to spend a minimum of 50% on direct instructional costs. Here's why it's a problem.

Instructional costs do NOT include:

• Nurses
• Counselors
• Speech Therapists
• Occupational Therapists
• Physical Therapists
• Nutrition
• School Resource Officers
• and more

And yet, these are all crucial to student learning. Oklahoma already requires that administration can only account for 5% of spending. Public school districts are focusing their budgets on student learning. This bill creates an arbitrary budget figure that could force cuts to important special education and other learning services. Imagine districts being forced to buy unnecessary classroom supplies while cutting support staff in order to meet this mandate.

Ask your State Representative to vote NO on HB1280.