Supporting Students with Behavioral Challenges Isn't About Exclusion

Creating Safe and Supportive Learning Environments

Classrooms should be places of learning, not daily chaos. As a fifth-year teacher in Oklahoma and a mother of two children on the autism spectrum, I have seen how severe behavioral challenges—aggression, self-harm, and refusal to engage—disrupt classrooms and affect both students and teachers. Many schools lack proper counseling support, both within the school and outside, as well as adequately trained behavioral aides and structured intervention programs. Teachers often lack sufficient training in behavior management, de-escalation, and trauma-informed care. Without these supports, even dedicated educators struggle to maintain safe, focused classrooms.

I am advocating in my district for stronger policies that include parent accountability, teacher training, and adequate resources for students with behavioral challenges. Oklahoma should take statewide action, implementing consistent behavior frameworks, requiring family participation in intervention plans, and providing protections for teachers. Supporting students with behavioral challenges is not about exclusion—it is about providing them with the help they need while protecting the learning environment for everyone. Safe, focused classrooms are essential for student success and teacher retention.

The Need for Democratic Reform

Democrats could become a party of change. The government shutdown winds down after 40 days fast imposed upon the American people by a party that knows better. The results have been nothing short of the most embarrassing disaster imaginable since Democrats foisted a decrepit senior citizen among more youthful, innovative candidates in 2020. Right now, there is a performative political party thriving upon improvised stagecraft and contradictory messages from its esteemed leader. Democrats do not need to line up behind such theatrics let alone perform their best iteration of its haphazard miscreance.

There are plenty of opportunities for the Democratic Party to stand up as the rationale remnant in a Washington, DC, full of executive orders and bizarre pardons. But Democrats' reflective pronouncements against edicts emanating from the Executive Branch is as nuanced as a child in a high chair rejecting everything put before him, including that which he normally likes. Democrats continue to portray (President Donald) Trump as leading America toward a fascistic future-verse even as Americans demonstrate interest in adults asking much more parsed, direct questions about national leadership.

Wandering among social causes that most Americans find neither relevant nor incumbent, Democrats could become a party of change by offering dialogues centered around issues people sincerely want resolved: economic policy, education, and domestic security issues. Bill Clinton ably distracted Americans from the austere of the Reagan era by disagreeing amicably to selective conservative principles, while recasting others as his own American values. It was brilliant nuance. Democrats don’t have that skill-set currently; rather, they have people championing governing principles held by individuals like Josef Stalin and Mao Zedung. They have individuals extolling socialism despite the practice having generations of failure across decades and continents. Democrats appear rudderless, compromising prowess for celebrity. It will haunt all of us as authentic leadership narrows for an America desperately needing it.

Resisting Trump's Influence

We CAN resist Trump's dictatorship. On Nov. 4, voters throughout the country soundly repudiated Trump and the malfeasance, corruption, and meanness his administration embodies. While commentators ascribe many reasons for the Democrats' success, including economy, Epstein, and election protection, they missed the important effect of powerful public protests. Nearly 8 million people took to the streets, across the country, with hand-drawn signs and peaceful presence, and that action engaged others to get out and vote.

Many people who feel dissatisfied, fearful, and angry about Trump's mis-administration of our government saw that they are not alone. We CAN resist Trump's dictatorship. They saw friends and strangers coming to protest and realized that they also can participate, at least by voting. While MAGA media mouthpieces ask, disingenuously, "what do those protesters want," people are saying on protest signs and on ballots, "no dictators," "no corruption," "rule of law," "democracy." Join in! You are not alone.

The Importance of Affordable Healthcare

Oklahomans need the support of an enhanced Affordable Care Act. Blame Republicans when families lose their health care because ACA subsidies are gone. Democrats wanted Republicans to extend Affordable Care subsidies to avoid the cost of that health insurance increasing to an unaffordable level for thousands of Oklahomans and millions of working people across our country. Democrats lost that battle. Blame Republicans when families lose their health care because those subsidies are gone at the end of December 2025.

The so-called Big Beautiful Bill that Republicans passed increased the national debt by $4.1 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, while retaining current tax cuts for billionaires. Democrats are trying to make our health care better. Republicans are taking it away by refusing to fund Affordable Care health insurance subsidies for many of us, our families, and friends. Remember that, and don’t vote straight party Republican on Nov. 3, 2026. Better yet, give Democrats a chance to help working people. Vote for them.

Questions About Presidential Actions

Did Trump use an auto-pen to sign pardons? I'm wondering if President Trump personally signed each of the 77 pardons he just issued, or if he used an auto-pen. Same question for the 1,000+ pardons he issued for the 2021 rioter in January. I ask because Trump questioned the legality of statutes President Biden allegedly signed by auto-pen. If he did sign all those by hand, he must be tuckered out! May be time to hit the links!

Oklahoma does not need problems AI data centers bring with them

They are finally recognizing the problems with AI centers. There were several pages in The Oklahoman devoted to the problems with having AI centers in Oklahoma. Chief among them being how do they isolate the residential customers from rate increase because of the demand by AI centers for the limited power and water available in Oklahoma.

Both, PSO (Public Service Co. of Oklahoma) and OG&E (Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co.), are looking at that problem. OG&E's approach is for those centers to pay for the electricity and generation required. PSO is moving in a different path. I wrote a letter on that to The Oklahoman a while back talking about those same problems, power and water. In it I suggested that those centers pay for all the power they need generated by building their own generation plants and developing their own water supplies. Leaving the underground aquifers alone. If there is not enough rain, those aquifers would be depleted in no time at all.

So, finally someone is taking note of the problem. Personally, I think they are a little too late taking into consideration what the problems could be. Our residential electrical costs are already high enough. We do not need to add more costs for supporting those centers.

More: Can Oklahoma really support resource-heavy data centers? The potential impact isn't clear

As far as water is concerned, I do not care how they do it, but I do not care to see them harming the freshwater sources we already have by their demands for water. I do not care if they have to build a pipeline and transport desalinated ocean water, as long as they do not affect our freshwater supplies. We do not need to experience the shortages that are occurring in California, Arizona and Nevada.

My preferences would be that they stay out of Oklahoma entirely. We do not need to affect the affordability that Oklahoma has by increased costs borne by the consumer.

― Andre Snodgrass, Norman

Consumers still would pay price

(Re: 'Time for the government to tax companies that don't pay employees a living wage,' Nov. 16 letter to the editor)

If employees weren't eligible and dependent on government programs, the basic economics of supply and demand should ensure employers offer essential benefits to get the workforce they need. Most corporations have voluntarily raised their starting pay above the federal minimum wage due to market forces. Corporations don't really pay taxes, they're an expense that gets passed on to the consumer. Throwing more tax money at these failed programs won't fix them.

― Gary M. Parish, Moore

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Supporting students with behavioral challenges is not about exclusion | Letters