Changes made to OSDE’s request for proposal for Bibles in classrooms

OKLAHOMA CITY ( KFOR ) – Changes have been made to a bid proposal sent out by State Superintendent Ryan Walters for 55,000 Bibles to be placed in Oklahoma’s classrooms.

The budget request for Fiscal Year 2026 was approved by the Oklahoma Board of Education on Thursday, September 26, with a $3 million ask for Bibles in classrooms . The Oklahoma legislature must still agree and pass the budget requests.

“This is a significant step for Oklahoma to ensure that we’re not allowing the left to censor American history,” said State Superintendent Ryan Walters.

During the meeting, Walters seemed to allude to $3 million already used from the current budget and that $3 million would be asked for the next year.

When asked what version of the Bible is going to be used, Walters replied with the New King James Version.

On Friday, October 4, a bid proposal for 55,000 Bibles was sent out after Supt. Ryan Walters announced his agency having and using $3 million for Bibles in class.

Oklahoma Watch reporter Jennifer Palmer, Paul Monies, Heather Warlick, and the Oklahoma Watch team have been combing through the Department of Education’s Request for Proposal (RFP) for days. They discovered the money was coming from the department’s payroll services area per OSDE Communications Press Secretary Dan Isett.

The original proposal said the Bibles had to include the Constitution, they have to be the King James Version, it has to have the Bill of Rights, the Pledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence and the Old and New Testaments.

According to the Associated Press, the request was changed Monday and no longer requires the Bibles to include U.S. historical documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution — requirements that match the “God Bless the USA Bible” that Trump endorsed and that more expensive than similar Bibles that don’t include the U.S. documents.

The RFP has now been amended, saying that those things are no longer required to be bound to the Bibles.

Read the new RFP.

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