Oklahoma board plans revote on Jewish charter school

OKLAHOMA CITY — An Oklahoma state board has scheduled an uncommon third vote on a first-in-the-nation Jewish charter school.

The Statewide Charter School Board will meet at noon Friday at the state Capitol to reconsider Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School’s application to open, according to a meeting agenda released Wednesday. Ben Gamla applied to become the first state-funded religious charter school in the country.

The school failed to earn board approval last week in a 4-3 vote. It fell one vote short of the five needed to pass. One member of the nine-seat board was absent, and another position is vacant.

“The rule for the board is that they have to have five votes for any final action,” the board’s attorney A.J. Ferate said. “There was no final action in a 4-3 vote either way. The function is that the board will make another attempt to meet five votes one way or the other at its meeting.”

Oklahoma law requires “an affirmative vote of at least five members” for the board to take any final action.

Ben Gamla would operate as an online school teaching both Jewish religious beliefs and secular school subjects.

“We are hopeful that the board’s reconsideration will result in approval of our application,” said Brett Farley, a member of Ben Gamla’s founding group.

Taking a third vote on a charter application is unusual.

State law outlines a two-vote process for reviewing applications for new online charter schools. If rejected by the board after an initial review, the application can be revised and submitted within 30 days for reconsideration. 

Typically, the second rejection is considered final. The board’s chairperson, Brian Shellem, initially told reporters Ben Gamla’s second vote was no different, and the school’s founders would have to submit a new application to be reconsidered.

Attorney General Gentner Drummond came to the same conclusion that the school was rejected and “any new application from Ben Gamla would have to start over and could only apply to a later school year,” according to a statement from his office last week.

But, the process for Ben Gamla has been anything but typical.

The state board first voted in March to reject the school, whose founders then sued in Oklahoma City federal court. The board backed Ben Gamla’s legal case, as it did for a prior attempt to open a Catholic charter school in the state. That previous effort failed before the Oklahoma Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court.

A federal district judge ruled in Ben Gamla’s favor in September, deciding a charter school cannot be denied solely because of its religious character.

That prompted a second board vote last week on Ben Gamla’s application, but it lacked the support it needed to pass.

Friday’s meeting agenda includes not only a revote but also a potential appeal of the federal court decision, which Ben Gamla founders reportedly have demanded to resolve the conflicting judicial rulings.

Board member William Pearson, one of three who voted against the school, said the vocal opposition from Oklahoma’s Jewish community against Ben Gamla weighed heavily in his decision.

Although the school’s application projected hundreds of students to enroll in its first year, Ben Gamla’s leading founder, former U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch, of Florida, told local Jewish leaders that he expects only 10 students in year one.

Shellem, who leads the state board, called Ben Gamla’s application “strong and thorough” and said it “would have been a great addition to our charter school network” by giving more families a quality educational option.