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Dive Brief:
- The Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board struck down a Jewish organization’s application for a prospective religious public charter school, according to a Monday announcement. But the board’s chair said he hopes this isn’t the end for the issue of religious public charters.
- The unanimous decision to reject Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation’s application to become a religious virtual public school followed an attempt last year by a Catholic school to become the nation’s first religious public charter. A resulting court battle made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, where an equally divided court affirmed its blockage at the state level.
- That school, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, appealed to the high court after the Oklahoma Supreme Court found that the school’s establishment violated the state and federal constitutions. Now, Ben Gamla and conservative nonprofit the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty say they intend to sue over the issue.
Dive Insight:
The Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board approved St. Isidore’s application in 2023 to open for the 2024-25 school year, but Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond sued the board over that decision. The Oklahoma Supreme Court sided with Drummond in 2024 when it found that the school’s establishment violated the state and federal constitutions.
Whereas the charter board narrowly approved St. Isidore for state funding in a 3-2 decision in 2023, its decision to reject Ben Gamla was unanimous.
“I believe the Board was placed in a difficult position,” said SCSB Chairman Brian Shellem in a Monday statement. “While we value innovation, parental choice, and high-quality educational opportunities for families, we are unfortunately bound by the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling from 2024, even if we disagree with it.”
Civil rights organizations celebrated the board’s decision to reject Ben Gamla, saying its establishment would have been “a flagrant violation” of church-state separation and religious freedoms under Oklahoma and federal laws.
“By refusing to approve what would have been the nation’s first religious public school, the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board is protecting Oklahomans’ religious freedom, public education, and church-state separation,” a coalition including Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union said Monday evening. “As the Oklahoma Supreme Court recently reaffirmed, charter schools are public schools that must be secular and open to all students.”
Shellem, however, said in the announcement he hopes the issue comes before the Supreme Court again to provide legal clarity and precedent, as families deserve “more high-quality, publicly funded schools.”
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2025 was at a deadlock over the issue of St. Isidore, which let Oklahoma’s supreme court decision blocking the school stand. That deadlock came as the result of a recusal of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who didn’t provide an official explanation for her decision to not take part in the case.Peter Deutsch, founder of six Ben Gamla charter schools in Florida, said in a letter to the charter school board obtained by the Oklahoma Voice that the organization “envisions Oklahoma students gaining a rigorous, values-based education that integrates general academic excellence with Jewish religious learning and ethical development.” The school would have opened initially with 40 students by the 2026-27 school year, per the local news outlet.
The road for both Ben Gamla and St. Isidore to become public charter candidates was paved by two U.S. Supreme Court cases — Carson v. Makin in 2022 and Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue in 2020. When taken together, the two cases gave private institutions access to public funding regardless of their religious use or status, leaving the door open for the public funding of religious schools, including charters with religious instruction.
