Prominent secular groups in a letter sent today are once again urging the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board to reject the nation’s first proposed religious public charter school.
The letter was written soon after the school admitted that it will not come close to meeting the student enrollment numbers predicted in its charter school application. Instead of opening with 335 to 495 enrolled K-12 students, as promised in its application, the proposed Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School has disclosed it now aims to operate as a high school with an “aspirational enrollment goal” of only 10 students during its first year. As explained in the letter, the drastically reduced enrollment plan demonstrates that the school lacks community support, that the school is financially unsustainable, and that its application is noncompliant with Oklahoma’s charter school requirements.
The school’s severely scaled back enrollment efforts were revealed in a recent email sent by Ben Gamla founder Peter Deutsch of Florida to Oklahoma Jewish leaders asking for their help in finding 10 students for the school’s first year of operation, which would begin in September 2027. Among the recipients of Deutsch’s email was Rabbi Daniel Kaiman, one of the seven Oklahoma taxpayers participating in a lawsuit to oppose Ben Gamla’s approval as a religious public charter school.
“I was surprised that Mr. Deutsch would not only ask for my help to enroll students in a public religious charter school — an endeavor I have publicly opposed because I believe in church-state separation and secular public education — but that he’d also invite me to apply to become the school’s principal,” Rabbi Kaiman says. “Mr. Deutsch’s email shows what we’ve long argued: Mr. Deutsch, who’s from Florida, and his school are completely disconnected from the Oklahoma Jewish community. It also shows how little our community wants this. Perhaps most importantly, it shows that this school is nothing but a Trojan horse for creating religious public schools. We don’t need or want this school. We want strong public schools and to keep church and state separate.”
Despite a recent federal court ruling that temporarily prohibits the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board from rejecting Ben Gamla’s application because of the school’s religious character, today’s letter reminds the board that the court’s order does not prevent it from rejecting the application on other grounds. Sent by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Education Law Center, the letter argues that the school’s erratic shift in operational plans raises serious concerns about Ben Gamla’s credibility and ability to run a functioning public charter school funded by Oklahoma taxpayers.
The organizations outlined multiple reasons why the board must reject Ben Gamla’s application, including:
- Ben Gamla lacks community support.
- Ben Gamla is not financially or operationally viable.
- Ben Gamla’s application is fatally deficient.
- Ben Gamla lacks any credibility.
Attorneys representing the intervenors include Nancy A. Noet and Samuel T. Grover of Freedom From Religion Foundation; Alex J. Luchenitser and Lauren Schoen of Americans United; Brent Rowland and Morgan Bandy of the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice; Daniel Mach and Heather L. Weaver of the ACLU; and Jessica Levin, Wendy Lecker, Patrick Cremin and Katrina Reichert of Education Law Center.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With more than 40,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State is a religious freedom advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, AU educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom. Learn more at www.au.org.
The Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice is a 501(c)3 public interest law firm that fights for the rights and opportunities of every Oklahoman.
Education Law Center (ELC) pursues justice and equity for public school students by enforcing their right to a high-quality education in safe, equitable, nondiscriminatory, integrated and well-funded learning environments. ELC seeks to support and improve public schools as the center of communities and the foundation of a multicultural and multiracial democratic society. Visit edlawcenter.org.
For more than 100 years, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has worked in courts, legislatures and communities to protect the constitutional rights of all people. With a nationwide network of offices and millions of members and supporters, the ACLU takes on the toughest civil liberties fights in pursuit of liberty and justice for all.
