Quotes of the Day

“It’s definitely not about my evaluation. It’s about watching kids cry and throw chairs and pee their pants and scratch their face until it turns red or they bleed. That’s what it’s about — that’s all that it’s about.”

-First-grade teacher Nikki Jones, one of two Tulsa Public Schools teachers who are refusing to give tests and surveys they feel are inappropriate for the six year-olds they teach (Source: bit.ly/1xK5zny)

“My husband had an incident while traveling in Colombia. Guerrillas stopped his church group. They put them on the ground and threatened to kill them. They stole everything and left them stranded. After that we decided to come here to the States to give our kids a better future.”

-Claudia, an Oklahoma City woman said she who hopes President Obama’s recent executive order will allow her to come out of the shadows and obtain a green card legally. Claudia babysits and cleans houses in Oklahoma City and is a member of the Mormon church. She came here with her husband and two boys in 1998 (Source: http://bit.ly/1xJqjgE).

“You don’t get something for nothing. We need to make the case that if we want a prosperous economy, if we want an educated population, we’re going to have to invest in it.”

– University of Oklahoma Board of Regents member Kirk Humphreys, discussing the Regents’ $1.086 billion budget request for fiscal year 2016. The figure is nearly 10 percent higher than their current budget. (Source: bit.ly/1xF18M3)

“You can’t put a value on the peace of mind that I’ve had all year, knowing that I would be covered if something serious happened, which at my age is always a possibility.”

– Don Marshall, an Oklahoma man who purchased health insurance on Healthcare.gov last year. Open enrollment begins on Saturday.  (Source: bit.ly/1v8doVd)

“The teacher shortage is about kids. I want an effective teacher in every room. I can’t do that until I can put a teacher in every room.”

– Clinton Public Schools Superintendent Kevin Hime, speaking at an interim study on teacher shortages in the state. (Source: bit.ly/1v6sTMy)

“No one was buying anything in downtown Tulsa, and we bought the building not knowing if downtown was going to come back. Everyone thought we were crazy.”

-Macy Snyder Amatucci, whose family’s $42 million investment in the Mayo Hotel and Lofts have become a central element of of downtown Tulsa’s revival (Source: nyti.ms/1tFhIE9)

“The sense of ‘Grab your pitchfork, and let’s take out the Affordable Care Act,’ that’s no longer there. As people get these benefits, as we move to 50 million people covered, knowledge about the program goes up, and it becomes less about Obamacare and this very abstract polarized headache called health care reform, and more about, ‘Wow, my kid’s going to get health insurance coverage after she leaves home.’”

-Dr. Lawrence Jacobs, a health care policy expert speaking at an event hosted by OK Policy and the Oklahoma Scholars Strategy Network on the future of health care reform (Source: http://bit.ly/1yub7AC)

“They say for every dollar you invest in community water fluoridation, you save about $38 in dental costs, so that’s one reason it’s a very cost-effective procedure.”

-Dr. Jana Winfree, director of dental health service at the state Health Department, who is concerned that many Oklahoma communities have stopped adding fluoride to their water due to its cost (Source: http://bit.ly/1EtMNTh)

“In Oklahoma we have a lot of [unemployment or low income, substance abuse and access to weapons]. Those are the top three risk factors for a person to be killed by their partner, and we don’t do great in any of those three areas.”

– Tracey Lyall, executive director of Domestic Violence Intervention Services, discussing domestic violence in Oklahoma. The city of Tulsa is convening a domestic violence summit in 2015 to address domestic violence in the community (Source: bit.ly/1AvKFvN)

“We encourage people to clean up the town. There’s a lot of campaign signs this time, and, you know, they’re ugly. We call them ‘litter on a stick’.”

– Metropolitan Environmental Trust Director Michael Patton, urging Tulsans to bring their campaign yard signs to any of the M.e.t.’s recycling centers post-election (Source: bit.ly/1qqCVBw)