Oklahoma state board again rejects Jewish charter school in ‘shocking’ vote

OKLAHOMA CITY — Despite a federal court ruling in favor of a Jewish charter school, an Oklahoma state board again rejected the school from opening.

The 4-3 decision Monday fell one vote short of the five needed for the Statewide Charter School Board to approve Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School. One member of the nine-person board was absent. Another seat is vacant.

None of the board members explained their reasoning before casting their votes. The board met in a closed-door executive session with attorneys for more than an hour Monday before voting publicly. 

“Welcome to the rollercoaster ride,” Board Chairperson Brian Shellem, who voted in favor of the school, said in the moments after the vote. “Unfortunately, that’s where we stand.”

Board member William Pearson said after the meeting that the local Jewish community’s opposition to the school weighed heavily in his decision to vote against Ben Gamla. 

Oklahoma Jewish faith leaders have publicly criticized the school as an out-of-state initiative that lacks local support, raising doubts about its viability. The school’s leading founder, Florida charter school leader and former U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch, has acknowledged he expects only 10 students to enroll in its first year.

Pearson similarly voted against a Catholic charter school, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, that applied for approval in 2023. St. Isidore, which had backing from local Catholic leaders, was later struck down in an Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling. A deadlocked U.S. Supreme Court upheld the state Court decision.

“I think it all goes back, to me, with the Jewish community in Oklahoma that actually had submitted letters to the board recommending that we not approve it,” Pearson said. “That, in conjunction with the fact that with St. Isidore we saw a lot of parent support for that. We saw none of that with the Ben Gamla issue, and that’s what played mostly in my mind.”

Board members Marshall Baker and Courtney Anderson, who acts as state Superintendent Lindel Fields’ proxy, also voted against the Jewish charter school. They declined to comment after the meeting. Fields’ office did not immediately return a request for comment.

The statewide board denied Ben Gamla’s application earlier this year in light of the state Supreme Court’s rejection of religious charter schools, but it still supported Ben Gamla’s case in Oklahoma City federal court.

Federal District Judge David L. Russell decided last month it would violate the First Amendment to deny a charter school solely because of its religion. The judge’s decision prompted the board to reconsider its vote on Ben Gamla.

Shellem, the board chairperson, said the school’s founders could apply again to open a religious charter school, but they would have to bring a new application. He said other faith groups also are welcome to apply in light of the federal court decision.

The vote Monday, though, “subjects our board to more litigation,” he said.

“We have a preliminary injunction that says we can’t discriminate against them based on their religious character,” Shellem said. “Obviously, I didn’t poll any of the board members. I don’t know why they voted a certain way. They had the same information that I had. I thought Ben Gamla’s application was strong and thorough. I think they would have been a great addition to our charter school network.”

Monday’s vote is “a setback,” said Brett Farley, a member of Ben Gamla’s founding board. The founders hoped to open Ben Gamla in August 2027 as an online school teaching both the tenets of Judaism and secular subjects.

Farley, also of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, said the founders will consider their options for appeal, either before the board or in court. This result, he said, was “a little shocking.”

“We expected after the court decision that they would approve,” he said. “So, we’re just taking assessment here of this decision and where we’re going to go from here.”

The board’s attorney, A.J. Ferate, was similarly unsure what steps lay ahead. He suggested the school’s founders could try to have the board held in contempt of court, given the vote seemed to contravene the federal judge’s decision.

“Being a lawyer, I presume that’s probably what’s going to come,” Ferate said.