Statewide Charter School Board

Oklahoma is again ground zero for a battle over publicly funded religious education as a proposed Jewish charter school looks to the courts for vindication. That’s despite members of the state’s Jewish community saying they weren’t consulted and are “deeply concerned” about the threat to the separation of church and state.

A group of Oklahoma families, teachers and clergy filed a motion Wednesday to intervene in a lawsuit over a proposed Jewish charter school.

Board members said they were bound to follow the St. Isidore ruling from the Oklahoma Supreme Court, despite some doing so begrudgingly.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond case next week.

A new charter school is headed to Blanchard after the Statewide Charter School Board voted unanimously Monday to allow The Academies of Oklahoma to expand to its third site next fall.