News 9

If it passed, SB1017 would have impacted medical care for students with special needs to include only “educationally necessary services” in schools. That means Individualized Education Plans, or IEPs — which provide specialized instruction and support services for students with disabilities — would have been impacted. One family spoke out in opposition of the bill on social media. Rhys and Neely Gay have a 7-year-old son with Down Syndrome. “Everett receives a lot of those services daily from the school and we just knew the impact not only it would have on him, but on children across the state of Oklahoma,” said Rhys Gay, Everett’s dad. Without these services, his parents shared, Everett would not be able to keep up in school. When they heard the bill was withdrawn, they said they felt relieved.