The 2025 Oklahoma legislative session is almost three-fourths of the way done for the year with adjournment occurring in late May, and a good number of positive bills are moving forward.
The Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy (OICA) is grateful to those policymakers - individuals from both rural and urban areas, men and women, Democrats and Republicans, new and veteran lawmakers - who filed and advanced legislation improve the lives of children. As you can see, categories do not matter when it comes to good policies.
Our Capitol team, along with citizen advocates, continue to promote positive outcomes in the bills remaining in the process. Of those we are tracking, here are just a few of the ideas being considered:
• Senate Bill 139 and House Bill 1276 - Requires schools to develop policies to prohibit students from the use of cell phones and smartwatches during the school day and when present on school property.
• Senate Bill 806 - Food is Medicine Initiative. Directs Oklahoma Health Care Authority to implement a financial incentive for contracted entities who improve health outcomes of covered members through nutrition services.
• House Bill 1484 – “Rain’s Law.” Requires student instruction on fentanyl use/abuse in schools.
• HouseBill1574-RequiresThe Office of Juvenile System Oversight at the direction of Oklahoma Commission on Children and Youth to inspect state-operated child facilities and inspect private operated child facilities on a periodic basis or as needed.
• House Bill 1848 - Grants a tax credit to employers that provides a childcaresubsidytotheiremployees or operates a childcare facility for their employees.
• House Bill 2013 - Creates “Dylan’s Law,” which provides that all individual and group health insurance policies that provide medical and surgical benefits must provide the same coverage and benefits to any individual who has been diagnosed with epilepsy as they would to an individual that has not been diagnosed with epilepsy.
• House Bill 2030 - Increases foster care maintenance payment for resources parents to be at least $22.72perdayor$681.60permonth (a $5/day increase).
• House Bill 2361 – “Successful Adulthood Act.” Provides children 16 years or older who have been released from custody due to the entry of an adoption decree or guardianship order will be eligible to receive successful adulthood services until they are 21.
• House Bill 2892 – Directs that the Oklahoma Commission on Children and Youth may pursue an investigation into a case where there exists reasonable belief in injurious conduct, neglect, physical or sexual abuse of a child has occurred.
That is a strong list; still, there are some ideas which will not move forward this year. One of those is placing barriers on the use of social media by those youngest of Oklahomans in their pre-teen years. Two bills were proposed - HB 1275 and SB 885 - but legislative leaders decided to pause advancement due to questions about constitutionality. There is a similar concept being considered by federal officials that mayadvance,andOICAencourages that debate and passage.
House Bill 1082 would have created a legal presumption that joint custody and equally shared parenting time is in the best interest of the child. The presumption could have been rebutted by a preponderance of evidence. This bill was held by the Senate Judiciary Committee to further study the language and remove any conflicting language currently in statute.
Over the summer, we will work to address the concerns with these concepts. In the meantime, we will advocate for advancing those remaining ideas left alive for this session. If you would like weekly updates on these and other bills, go to oica.org to sign up for our Thursday email newsletter.
About OICA: The Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy was established in 1983 by a group of citizens seeking to create a strong advocacy network that would provide a voice for the needs of children and youth in Oklahoma, particularly those in the state’s care and those growing up amid poverty, violence, abuse and neglect, disparities, or other situations that put their lives and future at risk. Our mission statement: “Creating awareness, taking action and changing policy to improve the health, safety, and well-being of Oklahoma’s children.”