The first potential religious charter school is facing a legal challenge just weeks before the start of the school year.
St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School in Oklahoma City was set to begin classes later this month, but a group of parents, clergy members, and education activists filed a lawsuit Monday to block state funding for the school.
The Oklahoma Parent Legislative Action Committee along with nine other plaintiffs argue the charter school contradicts a statute that requires charter schools to be nonsectarian – meaning they cannot adhere to a specific religious sect.
“You can’t use people’s tax dollars to promote or establish religion,” one of the plaintiffs, the Rev. Lori Walke, told The Oklahoman. “That’s what is being attempted right now.”
Although the school does not require students to be Catholic, they will adhere to biblical views on sexual orientation and gender identity.
As CBN News reported, the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City asked Oklahoma taxpayers to support the development of a virtual charter school shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled private schools could receive public funds from school voucher programs and government grants.
But in April, the Oklahoma school board unanimously shot down the school’s 400-page application citing eight concerns that needed to address before it could be approved.
The school made the appropriate accommodations for those requirements and the school board approved it in June despite the requirement that charter schools “be nonsectarian in its programs, admission policies, employment practices, and all other operations.”
Although its approval was considered a win by some, others immediately took issue with it, and threatened to sue.
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At the time, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond told the board that allowing Oklahoma’s taxpayers to have a religious charter choice would violate the Oklahoma Constitution.
“The approval of any publicly funded religious school is contrary to Oklahoma law and not in the best interest of taxpayers,” Drummond said in a statement. “…These members have exposed themselves and the state to potential legal action that could be costly.”
“We’ve taken a step down a slippery slope that will result someday in state-funded Satanic schools, state-funded Sharia schools,” he later told KFOR-TV. “This is not what Oklahomans nor our Constitution, nor the U.S. Constitution permit.”
Brett Farley, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, told CBN News the virtual charter school is not unconstitutional.
“The Supreme Court has been very clear a state’s not required to give public funds to private schools, but if they choose to do that they cannot prohibit religious institutions from participating in those programs,” he explained.
“We are not only in the right to be approved, but it is something that the state should be doing,” Farley added.
The school said earlier this year they are not afraid of lawsuits.
“We’re not surprised by the threat of a suit, but we will be preparing if they choose to file one,” Farley said. “This is a question that ultimately needs to be answered by the courts, perhaps by the U.S. Supreme Court.”
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