by: MICK HINTON and BARBARA HOBEROCK World Capitol Bureau
5/24/2008 

A handful of winners and losers emerged from the most recent session of the Oklahoma Legislature. Bills that focused on abortion and physical education in schools grabbed headlines and led to new legislation. On the other hand, several measures failed to move forward — leaving nonsmokers, teachers and state employees wanting more. Some of the winners and losers from the 2008 legislative session are summarized below.

Bills approved

Road funding
Advocates for roads and bridges succeeded in passing a $300 million bond package that secures the state’s eight-year plan for improvements.

Money for dams
Tulsa County residents will benefit from $25 million worth of bonds to construct low-water dams along the Arkansas River corridor.

Endowed chairs
Universities benefited from a commitment of $100 million for bonds to secure endowed professorships.

Pre-abortion ultrasounds
Abortion opponents were successful in gaining passage of Senate Bill 1878, which requires women seeking abortions to have ultrasounds within one hour of the procedure and requiring medical personnel to provide an explanation of the ultrasound. The Legislature overrode a veto by Gov. Brad Henry, who said it made no exceptions for victims of rape and incest.

More physical activity in schools
Sen. Mary Easley, D-Tulsa, was successful in passing Senate Bill 1186, which doubles the amount of physical activity for full-day kindergartners through fifth-graders to 120 minutes from 60 minutes in an effort to increase learning and reduce childhood obesity.

Bills derailed

Smoking ban not extended
Nonsmokers lost with the failure of Senate Bill 1875, which would have banned smoking in all public places, including restaurants, taverns, bars and hotels.

No official language, voter ID, added term limits
Republicans lost efforts to make English the state’s official language, require voter identification at the polls and put a 12-year term limit on statewide office holders.

No raises
State workers and teachers will not be getting raises this year because of a standstill budget.

Reduced property tax cap dies
Property owners saw an effort to cap annual increases at 3 percent, down from 5 percent, fail in a House committee.

Insurance coverage for autism fails
Patients and parents didn’t get bills passed requiring coverage for clinical trials and autism.

No guns on campus
Gun supporters were thwarted in passing a law that would have allowed some students to carry weapons on campus. The proposal alarmed college administrators, who convinced Senate leaders to snuff out the measure.

Source: Tulsa World

by: ANDREA EGER World Staff Writer
5/16/2008

A team reviews special education records at Tulsa Academic Center.

State education officials conducted an impromptu inspection Thursday of special education student records at the troubled Tulsa Academic Center. State Superintendent Sandy Garrett said her team was checking the records, interviewing staff members and students’ parents, and shadowing special education students to see whether the school has complied with federal laws during 2007-08.“Our job at the Department of Education is to be an agent of the federal government in this case and make certain that all schools comply with the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act,” Garrett said.

“In a compliance audit such as this, we would be checking to make certain every students’ Individualized Education Program, or IEP, is up to date and followed to the T.”

The Education Department will report the results of its compliance audit on its Web site in about 30 days.

Garrett had invited the Tulsa World to observe the audit process, and a Tulsa Public Schools spokeswoman, Tami Marler, had given clearance for a reporter to accompany the state Department of Education employees.

But Cheryl Henry, an interim administrator at Tulsa Academic Center, 2740 E. 41st St. North, asked the reporter to leave the site.

Henry called administrators at Tulsa’s Education Service Center to verify that Marler had given clearance to the reporter.

She eventually said that Chief Academic Officer Mary Guinn had instructed her to say, “Because of confidential student records, we cannot allow you to be a part of any interviews that are conducted today.”

Misty Kimbrough, the assistant state superintendent for special education services, said a compliance audit can be triggered by student, parent or school employee complaints to the state or by media reports.

For the Tulsa Academic Center, it was a combination of those, she said.

The Tulsa World published a series of stories documenting teacher, parent and student accounts of crowding and frequent violence at the Tulsa Academic Center, which Superintendent Michael Zolkoski founded in August.

In one of those initial reports, Rick Palazzo, the school district’s director of alternative programs, confirmed claims by several teachers that they had no access to special education students’ IEPs, which contain critical information about each student’s unique needs.

He said then that schools throughout the Tulsa district had failed to send IEPs when they referred special education students to the Tulsa Academic Center, but that he and other administrators would be working to rectify the situation.

Disability rights advocates with the Oklahoma Disability Law Center in Oklahoma City have been investigating special education services at the Tulsa Academic Center since the Tulsa World’s reports began appearing in mid-March.

The Oklahoma Disability Law Center is a federally funded protection and advocacy agency and an affiliate of the National Disability Rights Network.

Kayla Bower, the Oklahoma Disability Law Center’s attorney and executive director, has said that parents of students at Tulsa Academic Center had been in contact with the agency and that it was concerned by reports of a lack of “positive behavioral interventions” at the school, allegations of abuse or neglect, failure to use students’ IEPs and a lack of services or appropriate evaluations.
Source: Tulsa World

by: MICHAEL OVERALL World Staff Writer
4/15/2008

State officials cite statistics to argue that such programs greatly reduce the chance of repeat addiction.

The inmate’s voice cracks a little as she tells her story, skipping details to concentrate on the emotions. That’s what the counselor wants to hear. “Fear. Anger. Frustration.” Serving four years in prison for possession of a controlled substance, Cathy Reed had what she vaguely describes as “a confrontation” with another inmate. “It made me feel like I had no control.”Sitting at the other end of a conference table in her black pinstripe pant suit, her counselor, Chiang Lei Chi, leans forward and asks:“And what did you do to vent those feelings?”

Seven other women, all wearing identical gray outfits with “INMATE” printed on the back, turn to look at Reed. She stands out in the gray-painted room as the only one wearing a blue Oklahoma Department of Corrections shirt.

“I did this,” she confesses, holding up a Snickers bar. “The way I’m going, I’m going to weigh 200 pounds before I get out of here.”

Compared with a drug habit, that’s progress.

If Reed completes this group therapy program at the Hillside Community Correctional Center in Oklahoma City, she will have an 80 percent chance of never returning to prison, Corrections Department statistics show.

Without the treatment, the odds would turn nearly upside-down — she would have about an 80 percent chance of being back in custody within a few years.

‘Just common sense’: Armed with numerous studies about the effectiveness of drug treatment programs, corrections officials are lobbying hard this year for increased funding. They already have the governor on their side.

Gov. Brad Henry’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year includes $2 million for in-prison treatment. If the Legislature approves the request, it would be the first time Oklahoma ever set aside funding specifically for this purpose.

The state’s treatment programs are now supported largely by federal grants and general operating funds from the Corrections Department.

That funding, however, doesn’t even come close to providing treatment to all the inmates who need it. Only one out of three Oklahoma inmates receives treatment for a diagnosed chronic drug or alcohol addiction.

“The governor thinks that is simply unacceptable,” says Henry’s spokesman, Paul Sund.

Additional funding would be an investment, not an expense, because it’s cheaper in the long run to rehabilitate inmates, Sund says.

“We have to close the revolving door that keeps letting people out of prison and bringing them right back in again,” he says. “Treatment has been shown to work, so it’s just common sense to move in that direction.”

‘Find another way:’ Guards make a point of looking for tennis balls in the grass at the Bill Johnson Correctional Center, a 444-bed drug treatment center in Alva, near the Panhandle.

Find one and it’s sure to have a hole punched in it and drugs stashed inside. Friends and relatives toss them over the fence, presumably at predetermined locations, for inmates to retrieve.

“Desperate people can get very creative,” says Janet Dowling, the program director at the Johnson Center, where the state plans to add hundreds of beds if funding becomes available.

“But you have to have a clean facility if you want to have effective treatment. It’s an ongoing battle that we fight every day.”

Drugs have a way of slipping into the Hillside center, too. Leon Hawkins, the program director there, used to kick inmates out of treatment if they tested positive on drug screenings.

“Then I realized, ‘Hey, they’re the ones that need it the most,’ ” he said. “Now, if they’re willing to try again, we’ll keep working with them. We won’t give up on them until they give up on themselves.”

That’s not the only way treatment programs have evolved since the 1990s.

The department used to emphasize support groups — like-minded individuals encouraging and reinforcing positive behaviors in each other. But when inmates left prison — and the support groups — they often reverted to old habits.

“It was well-intentioned,” says Clint Castleberry, the department’s clinical coordinator for institutional programs. “But not very effective.”

Partly through trial and error, and partly through studying what has worked in other states, Oklahoma officials are confident they have a better approach.

Known as “cognitive behavioral therapy,” it still involves group therapy — but aims to reform the emotions, values and beliefs that lead to drug use.

“If you’re dealing with — let’s say — your insecurities by drinking, then you’re going to need to find another way to deal with those insecurities,” Castleberry says.

“You have to address what’s inside of a person driving those destructive behaviors.”

‘Think through this:’ At Hillside, Chi is pressing Reed to think about her long-term ambitions and how drug use keeps sidetracking her plans.

“You have goals and dreams,” the counselor insists. “What are they?”

Reed shrugs. “I want to lose 20 pounds.”

Chi sighs. “You must have bigger dreams. What do you want out of life?”

Reed shakes her head. “I’m serious. I was 202 pounds when I was clean. I don’t want to be like that again.”

Sitting around a long conference table, several other inmates speak up to agree with Reed. Weight gain is a serious concern for women trying to get off drugs.

“OK, OK,” Chi says, raising her hand to silence the room. “Let’s think through this. Let’s think about actions and consequences. What is your goal? What actions will take you closer to your goal? What actions will take you further away from your goal?”

Reed puts her candy bar on the table. “OK. Maybe I won’t eat that one.”

Another inmate reaches over to pat Reed on the shoulder. “Just remember — it’s still better than using.”

By the numbers

5,540: New inmates diagnosed with chronic drug or alcohol addiction in 2007.

1,445: Inmates who received drug and alcohol treatment before being released last year.

$1.1 million: Spent by the Department of Corrections on treatment programs last year.

$630,000: Spent by the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services for in-prison treatment programs.

0.029: Percent of the total state budget spent on in-prison drug treatment.
Source: Tulsa World

BAMN PRESS RELEASE 4/5/2008:

BAMN (The Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary), the national organization that has led the fight against Ward Connerly, and AWAKE (All Working to Keep and Achieve Equality), an organization that led the fight against Connerly’s fraud in Oklahoma, forced the Oklahoma Civil Rights Initiative (OCRI) to withdraw its petition to place an anti-affirmative action referendum on the Oklahoma ballot in 2008.

OCRI withdrew its petition in response to the challenge that BAMN and AWAKE initiated on Wednesday, February 20, 2008 when they held press conferences in Oklahoma City and Tulsa exposing the fraud employed by OCRI to gather signatures for the ballot petition and announcing the filing of a ballot challenge. Among the main spokespersons at those press conferences were Pleas Thompson, President of the Tulsa Chapter NAACP and David Bernstein of the Jewish Federation of Tulsa—who had been defrauded into signing the petition and who were demanding that their names to be removed. BAMN and AWAKE’s efforts to challenge the OCRI were subsequently supported by the ACLU and the NAACP/LDF, who also filed challenges with the Oklahoma Supreme Court. A hearing to schedule the investigation into the charges against OCRI was scheduled for Tuesday, April 8, 2008.

BAMN also today announced plans to force Connerly to withdraw his petitions in the four other states that he has targeted (Missouri, Nebraska, Colorado and Arizona). The first step is Missouri, where BAMN and local organizations will begin circulating a petition for voters to withdraw their signatures from Connerly’s petitions in that state.

Shanta Driver, an attorney on the Oklahoma challenge and the National Co-Chair of BAMN, said, “As he did in Michigan, Connerly tried to get his proposal to ban affirmative action on the Oklahoma ballot by defrauding black, Latina/o and Native American voters into signing what he said was a civil rights proposal. He withdrew his petition in Oklahoma because he did not have enough signatures and because he knew that his fraud would be exposed, which would have hurt him in other states.”

The New York Times (SEE ARTICLE), Black Enterprise, Diversity Inc., and other media have carried a number of recent articles detailing Connerly’s attempts to defraud voters in Colorado and other states. Two years ago, in response to a Voting Rights Act lawsuit filed by BAMN, the United States District Court in Michigan and the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued decisions describing the fraud that Connerly used to get on the ballot in Michigan.

Regina Goodwin, a leader of AWAKE, was the first to expose Connerly’s fraud in Oklahoma. She said “Affirmative action is needed in this Nation. Employment and higher education must include everyone and affirmative action is essential in that effort. We are prayerful that fraud will fail in the other four states and in the future.”

George Washington, a lawyer for BAMN on the challenge in Oklahoma, said that “Oklahoma should be very proud that it defeated Connerly. But to keep him from coming back two years from now, we must defeat him in the other four states. We have to show him that he cannot take us backward based on defrauding the very people who will be most hurt by his proposal.”

by: KIM ARCHER World Staff Writer
3/22/2008

Some areas lack services

The 74126.

It is the Tulsa ZIP code devoid of doctors, hospitals or any kind of medical service.“That particular ZIP code has the ignominious reputation of being the worst ZIP code for premature death,” said Lynn Hersey, operations manager for Good Samaritan Health Services, which provides mobile health units for medically underserved Tulsans.“Much of that we understand is because of their limited access to health care,” she said.

Transportation in the 74126 is a hardship for many residents of the area. Many do not own a car, and bus routes are not user-friendly, Hersey said.

Compare the area to the 74055 ZIP code of Owasso and it is like a different country. Owasso has two hospitals, loads of doctors and at least a couple of urgent-care centers.

“People in the 74126 ZIP code have a 14-year less life expectancy than the rest of the city,” said Dr. Donald Tyler, pastor of Greater Grace Temple, 1010 E. 56th St. North. “There is no medical facility within six miles of this building.”

Beginning Tuesday, the church will be the site of the North Tulsa Health Clinic. The clinic will be held 10 a.m. to noon weekly.

“We’ve been blessed with the opportunity to open this clinic,” Tyler said. “It’s very critical to the people here.”

The 74126 may arguably be the worst area in a state that ranks last in the country for its health status.

But there are other Tulsa areas where the health care need is great.

Much of east and west Tulsa get medical care served up through a patchwork system of mobile medical units and health clinics in stores and schools, if they get the care they need at all.

“Mini-clinics certainly play a role in acute care. It’s not a bad fix,” said Dr. Gerard Clancy, president of the Uni versity of Oklahoma-Tulsa.

But he said these clinics cannot take the place of a primary physician or an emergency room.

“These short-term clinics really don’t have a role in helping with the long-term care of chronic patients,” he said.

Without routine care, these patients’ conditions worsen and require emergency care, Clancy said.

Said Hersey, “We are overwhelmed in Tulsa. We don’t have a hospital for the indigent. We only have two federally funded clinics. Last I heard, we could have four,” she said.

Going mobile: More mobile health units and clinics located in retail stores such as Wal-Mart have sprung up in an attempt to fill in the primary care gap.

OU-Tulsa has its Sooner Schooner II mobile health clinic. OSU Health Sciences Center has its Dr. Pete mobile telemedicine clinic. And Wal-Mart has a handful of Redi-Clinics.

“I can tell you that the initial response to our clinics was that we are meeting a need,” said Deisha Galberth, Wal-Mart spokeswoman. “The clinics provide more access and more affordability for our customers.”

Wal-Mart has two Redi-Clinics in Oklahoma, one in a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Owasso and one in Broken Arrow, she said.

The company plans to open another 400 across the country in the next two to three years, and some of those will be in Oklahoma, Galberth said.

“We don’t look at our clinics as a replacement for primary care, but as a supplement,” she said.

Yet patients often use these clinics for their primary care needs anyway.

Emergency rooms are crowded, and getting care can mean waiting for hours.

“Hospitals are so glutted with indigent patients,” Hersey said. Good Samaritan sends mobile units to 13 locations throughout the city, she said.

“In all of our locations, we’re seeing a large number of working poor and a growing number of people from rural areas,” Hersey said. “Many are embarrassed to come.”

By the time many people get to the clinic, their illness or injury often has become more complicated, she said.

Help coming: But health care in west and north Tulsa will become more accessible soon. The Tulsa branches of OSU and OU are building superclinics; OSU near its hospital downtown and OU in north Tulsa.

The Tulsa City-County Health Department plans to open a multidisciplinary clinic in north Tulsa between 36th Street North and 56th Street North near Cincinnati Avenue.

Until then, though, many Tulsans and their health conditions will fall through the cracks.

Good Samaritan sees more than 500 patients in a month at its locations and often has to turn people away due to the lack of resources, said Hersey.

“What health care resources we do have become overwhelmed very quickly,” she said. “The need is great.”

Find a nearby mobile health clinic

• Good Samaritan Health Services: Call 493-7884 or go to www.tulsaworld.com/ goodsamaritan and click on medical sites.
• University Oklahoma’s Sooner Schooner: 660-3614
• Oklahoma State University’s Mobile Telemedicine Clinic: 561-1113

Town hall discussion

What: TheTulsa City-County Health Department hosting a town hall discussion on health inequities that exist in Tulsa.

When: 2-3:30 p.m. Monday

Where: Central Center at Centennial Park, 1028 E. Sixth St.

Who: Speakers will include local Health Department Executive Director Gary Cox, state Health Commissioner Michael Crutcher, Indian Health Care Resource Center Executive Director Carmelita Skeeter, Community Health Connection Executive Director Laurie Paul and Good Samaritan Health Services President and CEO John Crouch Jr.
Source: Tulsa World