Drummond seeks court order to force Charter School Board to follow the law
OKLAHOMA CITY (March 11, 2026) – Attorney General Gentner Drummond today is asking a court to order the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board to tell the whole truth on why it rejected an application to establish the Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School. At its meeting this week, the Board cited only religion as its reason, ignoring flaws the Board previously identified in the application that were never remedied.
"This Board is playing politics with the taxpayers' money," said Drummond. "The revised Ben Gamla application had multiple serious flaws, which this Board itself identified just weeks earlier. But instead of doing its job and listing every valid reason for rejection, the Board deliberately suppressed those findings to manufacture a cleaner path to federal court. I will not allow this Board to rig the record at taxpayers' expense."
The Board has a statutory duty to reject weak or inadequate applications. In February, the Board did just that – rejected the Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation's application and listed all the reasons for the denial.
At its March 9 meeting, the Board met to consider the foundation's revised application, which did not address all of the reasons the application was originally denied. A representative from the Attorney General's office pointed to a ten-fold enrollment discrepancy as one reason to decline the application. Both the Oklahoma City and Tulsa Jewish communities oppose the school, and its founder admitted he had spoken with fewer than 20 Jewish Oklahomans before applying. These factors cast serious doubt on the school's ability to meet even its original enrollment projections, let alone the dramatically inflated numbers in the revised application.
Despite those concerns, chairman Brian Shellem blocked a motion to reject the application on all valid grounds and steered members to cite only religion as the reason for denial.
"The Board has announced plans to hire outside legal counsel to defend a threatened federal lawsuit, and it manipulated the record to make that lawsuit easier to lose — not win," said Drummond. "A state agency that deliberately hobbles its own legal position is not doing its job — it is betraying Oklahoma taxpayers. I will not allow that," said Drummond. “Let me be clear: This petition has nothing to do with the religious character of this school. Those questions were settled by the Oklahoma and U.S. Supreme Courts. It is about demanding that a state agency follow the law and issue a complete and honest rejection letter.”
