OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board voted not to approve a taxpayer-funded virtual religious charter school to open in Oklahoma.
The board voted to disapprove the school and is sending several questions back to the school organizers. The school then has 30 days to address the questions and make another presentation to the board for another vote.
2 News previously reported on the proposed St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School earlier this year.
If approved, school organizers planned to offer online education for ages kindergarten through high school for an initial 500 students and hope to grow to 1,500. This would be the first public religious charter school in the country.
WATCH: The full board meeting
The application is more than a year in the making, drafted by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa, with help from the University of Notre Dame.
Currently, state law forbids religious charter schools. Previous Oklahoma Attorney General John O'Connor argued the portion of the state constitution that addressed this was unconstitutional, but current Attorney General Gentner Drummond withdrew that ruling saying it “incorrectly concluded that Oklahoma taxpayer dollars could be tapped to fund religious charter schools.”
The next vote must be on or before April 29.
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