Oklahoma orders school board to rescind Catholic charter contract after court ruling

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CNA Staff, Jul 18, 2024 / 14:56 pm (CNA).

The Oklahoma attorney general is ordering a school board to rescind the contract of a budding Catholic charter school following a state Supreme Court ruling against the school last month. 

St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School would have been the first religious charter school in the nation, but in late June the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled against its establishment and ordered the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board to drop the Catholic institution’s contract.

State Attorney General Gentner Drummond had asked the high court to declare the state’s contract with the school unconstitutional on the grounds that it constituted public funding of a religious institution. Charter schools are publicly funded but are allowed to operate with a high degree of autonomy relative to standard public schools. 

St. Isidore’s, managed by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, is appealing the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. The virtual charter school board, meanwhile — which has since been incorporated into the Statewide Charter School Board — has delayed rescinding the contract pending the outcome of the appeal.

Last week Drummond ordered the statewide charter board to comply with the court’s ruling. 

“You must know and accept that no state agency, board, or commission may willfully ignore an order from Oklahoma’s highest court,” Drummond wrote in a July 11 letter to the board members in which he said that the board had twice failed to rescind the contract. 

“Rather than abiding by the [state] Supreme Court’s order, the board has disregarded its duties by deferring to the [school’s] litigation whims,” he continued. 

Drummond ordered the board to rescind the contract either by calling a special meeting or moving the next scheduled board meeting to “no later than” the last day of July.

In a filing to the Oklahoma Supreme Court earlier this month, meanwhile, Drummond argued that a further stay would “[allow] the [school] to continue to tout its unconstitutional contract to unsuspecting families.”

St. Isidore had argued that the stay was for legal reasons, not to continue operation of the school at the moment.

A stay “would not permit St. Isidore to open to children or allow state charter school funding to go to St. Isidore while review by the U.S. Supreme Court is sought,” St. Isidore’s request read.

“The limited stay would simply preserve the current contract in the event the U.S. Supreme Court reverses [the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision],” the school said.

St. Isidore, a joint project between the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa, was set to launch in August as an online, tuition-free, Catholic K–12 charter school based out of Oklahoma City.

The school had 200 students registered to start in the fall but has pushed out its start date due to the ongoing legal issues.