. And on June 5, 2023, Oklahoma’s five-person Statewide Virtual Charter School Board pushed this much-debated question into new territory by approving plans for a religious charter school – the first in the nation.
Under the proposed charter, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School plans to open in the fall of 2024 with up to 500 from across the state. The school would be run by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa, but, like all charter schools, would be paid for with taxpayer dollars.in recent years, opening up more ways for public dollars to support faith-based education. A charter school – privately operated, but publicly funded – would be the most dramatic of these challenges to how the separation of church and state applies to education.
“The approval of any publicly funded religious school is contrary to Oklahoma law and not in the best interest of taxpayers,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in a statementThe key question is not whether a charter would help or harm local education, but whether explicitly religious instruction at charter schools is constitutional, given