Oklahoma education officials have declined to approve a proposal to establish what would have been the state’s first Jewish charter school, pointing to recent legal precedent involving a Catholic virtual charter school.
On Monday, the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board voted to deny the application for Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School, a proposed religious public charter institution.
Ben Gamla, which currently operates four campuses in Florida, is expected to challenge the decision. According to the religious liberty law firm Becket, the school’s leadership plans to appeal the ruling.
“Parents across the Sooner State deserve more high-quality options for their children’s education, not fewer,” said Peter Deutsch, founder of the Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School, in a statement.
“Yet [Republican Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond] is robbing them of more choices by cutting schools like Ben Gamla out. We’re confident this exclusionary rule won’t stand for long.”
Several organizations that advocate for church-state separation praised the board’s action. Groups including Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, Education Law Center, Freedom From Religion Foundation and Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice supported the rejection.
The coalition had submitted a letter to the board urging members to deny the application, arguing that approval would violate constitutional provisions at both the state and federal levels.
“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,” the groups said in a joint statement.
The effort to establish the Jewish charter school began last November, when Deutsch, a former Florida congressman, filed a letter of intent outlining plans for a virtual religious academy in Oklahoma.
His proposal listed Brett Farley — a board member for the previously proposed St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School — as part of the founding team. St. Isidore had sought to become Oklahoma’s first religious charter school before its approval was overturned.
In June 2023, the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board voted 3-2 to authorize St. Isidore, which would have operated under the oversight of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Catholic Diocese of Tulsa.
The approval quickly faced legal challenges. Attorney General Gentner Drummond filed a complaint in October 2023, while a coalition of advocacy groups initiated a separate lawsuit in July 2023.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled 7-1 in June 2024 that the authorization of St. Isidore violated the state constitution.
Following that decision, the charter school board voted unanimously to rescind the contract for St. Isidore. However, it also appealed the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In May 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a brief 4-4 per curiam decision upholding the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s ruling. Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case due to reported personal connections to a professor who had served as an early adviser to St. Isidore.
