Oklahoma’s brick-and-mortar public schools would not be allowed to transition to virtual learning in most situations, other than true emergencies, under legislation approved by the Oklahoma Senate.

Senate Bill 758, by Senate President Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton and state Sen. Kristen Thompson, would limit brick-and-mortar public schools to just two days (or 12 hours) of virtual learning as part of the 180 days of instructions/1,080 hours of instruction required each school year, outside specific emergency circumstances, provided the two virtual days are approved by the state superintendent of public instruction or tied to an emergency order issued by the governor.

“What we are seeing across the state is our educational outcomes continue to decline, and our kids need to be in the classroom,” said Thompson, R-Edmond.

The debate over virtual learning became intertwined with the issue of four-day school weeks. Oklahoma law allows schools to operate just four days a week, provided they meet certain academic performance standards.

However, lawmakers noted that many schools are using pre-scheduled virtual days to effectively transition to a four-day week while technically claiming to offer five days of learning.

“The four-day week debate is only for schools that are using a virtual day to cheat their way into a four-day week,” said Paxton, R-Tuttle. “If you’re a qualifying school, you go apply for the waiver and you can have your four-day week. You qualify with the performance of your school. But there are some schools that don’t qualify, so how they get their four-day week is they use that Friday, that fifth day, as a ‘remote learning day.’ And so they just plug that in, whether they have the ability to do it or not, whether they can do it or not, whether they are doing it or not.”

In most cases, he said those “remote learning days” are a farce.

“Virtual days are a fraud on our students’ education,” Paxton said. “Most schools aren’t teaching on those days.”

He pointed to his family’s own experience.

“I’ve seen virtual days when my kids were in high school,” Paxton said. “I’ve seen what they consist of. It consists of a senior in high school doing a third-grade math paper that took her five minutes to do, taking a picture of it, send it to her teacher, and that qualified for a day of learning.”

Thompson noted that virtual days also create havoc for many working parents, particularly mothers.

“Virtual days are complete and utter chaos,” Thompson said. “They are not helpful. They are not valuable. They are stressful.”

But state Sen. David Bullard, R-Durant, argued that the five-day-in-name-only schools will lose teachers if they are required to provide in-person instruction for five days a week, and argued the loss of a fifth day has little real impact on student learning.

“Your rural schools, currently, are mostly where these four-day school weeks happen, either by the waiver or by the virtual day,” Bullard said. “Would you believe that those schools are the ones that are performing the best, over the urban schools?”

“When we look statewide, when we are looking at Oklahoma in comparison to the nation and even to our neighboring states, our educational outcomes are not where any of us would want them to be,” Thompson replied. “And so I think ‘performing well’ may be a relative and subjective term.”

Bullard claimed that research shows four-day school weeks are not detrimental to student learning and can even improve it.

“We know that the data shows that the four-day school week does not harm kids,” Bullard said. “What is this going to do to the ability of these rural schools to be able to recruit teachers?”

But many studies have found otherwise.

In January, Emily Morton, a researcher working for CALDER at the American Institutes of Research, noted, “The research is mixed on the impact of four-day weeks on student achievement, but most studies find small to medium negative impacts on achievement on average. These negative effects are roughly equivalent to a student being two to seven weeks behind where they would have been if they had stayed on a five-day week.”

State Sen. Ally Seifried, R-Claremore, noted the logical inconsistency of many who argue in support of four-day school weeks.

“If we’re going to talk about a four-day school week, why don’t we talk about a three-day school week, two-day?” Seifried said.

The Oklahoma Parent Legislative Advocacy Coalition (PLAC) opposed the bill, declaring that “virtual learning is part of a modern education.”

Democratic lawmakers also opposed the bill.

“Leave this decision where it belongs at the local level, and they will get it right,” said state Sen. Mark Mann, D-Oklahoma City, who previously served on the Oklahoma City school board.

Thompson said Oklahoma students are being shortchanged by districts that use virtual days to effectively reduce the workweek of staff.

“I’m running this for our kids, because they deserve better,” Thompson said. “They deserve to have access to high-quality education every single day.”

SB 758 passed the Senate on a 33-14 vote. The bill now proceeds to the Oklahoma House of Representatives.