OKC archdiocese plans to appeal religious charter school ruling to US Supreme Court

The Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City said Friday it plans to seek review from the U.S. Supreme Court of the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling this week that said a contract between the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board and St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School is illegal.

By a 3-2 vote last October, the state board approved the creation of St. Isidore and Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond quickly sued, saying such an agreement was unconstitutional. The state court heard oral arguments in the case on April 2 and in its decision this week, it ordered the state board to rescind the contract.

St. Isidore, operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa, is seeking to become the nation’s first Catholic virtual charter school. The case is being eyed closely due to its religious overtones and potential for a precedent-setting ruling.

Attorneys for the state board and St. Isidore have argued the school would actually be a private entity, and not a public school. They said not allowing St. Isidore to receive public funds like Oklahoma’s other charter schools would amount to religious discrimination that would violate the U.S. Constitution.

“We will continue to fight this decision and the unconstitutional discrimination against educators and families,” a statement on the St. Isidore website said. “…We remain steadfast in our belief in the promise of this school and in our constitutional right to help serve Oklahoma families through the charter-school program.”

The statement said because of the time it will take for an appeal to work through the court system, St. Isidore will not open as planned for the 2024-25 school year. The archdiocese has said more than 200 applications for the school have been received.

John Helsley, a spokesman for the archdiocese, confirmed to The Oklahoman the school would be seeking review from the U.S. Supreme Court.

The St. Isidore board ― considered a public entity, because a charter school is defined by Oklahoma law as a public school ― met Friday morning in Broken Arrow and approved the following resolution: “Given the Oklahoma Supreme Court's adverse ruling, the Board confirms that the School will delay opening to students at least until the 2025-2026 school year, as it seeks review by the United States Supreme Court. Further, the School will not accept charter-school funding from the State of Oklahoma for the 2024-2025 school year. St. Isidore will not accept such funding until at least July 1, 2025."

Statewide Virtual Charter School Board holds its final meeting to consider the St. Isidore issue

The Statewide Virtual Charter School Board — which will cease to exist after Sunday, as it will be rolled into a separate Statewide Charter School Board that will begin operations on July 1 — held a special meeting on Friday morning at the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City. The only substantive items on the agenda were an executive session to discuss the state Supreme Court’s order for the board to rescind its contract with St. Isidore and a potential vote to do that.

The Statewide Virtual Charter School Board is supposed to have five voting members, but in its final days, it’s down to only three, meaning they all had to attend the meeting to have a quorum. They did, but needing all three of them to vote the same way on an item for it to pass, they essentially accomplished nothing during the meeting.

After the executive session, Board Chair Robert Franklin made a motion to follow the state Supreme Court’s directive to rescind the contract with St. Isidore, but was joined in that vote only by William Pearson, with Brian Shellem choosing to abstain. Then came another motion for the board to file a motion with the state Supreme Court to clarify the timing of any action the board needed to take. That also received two votes in favor, with Pearson abstaining.

Franklin said he assumes the responsibility of taking action on the state Supreme Court’s directive now will fall to the new Statewide Charter School Board. Franklin has not been chosen to serve on the new board, which will hold its first meeting on July 8. That board will include nine people but doesn’t yet have a full slate of members, although some — including Shellem and state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters — are publicly known. Walters, though not a party to the case decided Tuesday, has intensely criticized the justices who rendered the decision.

Franklin said the Statewide Virtual School Charter Board left its successor board in “an awkward position” and that he was “vexed” by the result of Friday’s meeting.

“To me, it felt like it was our obligation as a (current) board to take action on it,” said Franklin, who was one of two board members last year who voted against establishing the contract with St. Isidore. “We find ourselves in a position where we say, ‘OK, well then I guess the next board will do that work. Once that happens, then I guess we’ll find ourselves into the next place where it lands.

“There is no doubt in my mind that this will work its way to the highest court in the land. … I just find it heavy, heavy, for the state of Oklahoma to be at the point of a spear, because it just doesn’t seem necessary."

Franklin said he assumes the responsibility of taking action on the state Supreme Court’s directive now will fall to the Statewide Charter School Board.

“I think there will have to be a place where the (new) board, ultimately, has to make that decision, is forced to make that decision," he said. "I guess that board could choose not to follow the (state) Supreme Court’s orders. I find that really, really uncomfortable and unconstitutional, but I guess it’s possible.”

Franklin said he didn’t think it was any state board’s responsibility to file any appeal for a rehearing with the state Supreme Court: “It’s not our board’s place to be an advocate for that. It’s not. That’s for other side’s counsel to make that process work.”

There’s also a second lawsuit involving St. Isidore, one filed in Oklahoma County District Court by a group of taxpayers involving similar arguments to the ones made by Drummond in his case. On June 5, District Judge Richard Ogden allowed most of the case to proceed, rejecting a motion for dismissal. He’d scheduled a three-day hearing, to start July 24, on a motion made by the plaintiffs for a restraining order to prevent state money from flowing to St. Isidore.

On Thursday, though, Ogden cancelled that hearing. During the June 5 hearing, all sides in the case and Ogden acknowledged in court that any state Supreme Court decision might render that hearing unnecessary.