Attorney General Gentner Drummond has dismissed his court action against the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board after Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School’s revised application failed to receive enough votes for approval.
Four board members voted to approve the application and three opposed it. Approval required five votes.
Drummond said the case sought to require the board to fully explain its reasons for rejecting the school’s application. His office raised concerns about community support, enrollment projections and financial viability.
“My office warned this Board in March that the school had no community support and no realistic path to the enrollment it promised,” Drummond said.
According to the attorney general’s filing, Ben Gamla initially proposed a 40-student high school, then submitted an application describing a K–12 school serving 335 to 400 students. The founder later told Oklahoma Jewish leaders that the school would open as an online high school with a first-year goal of 10 students.
The filing argues that the smaller enrollment projection did not support financial plans built around several hundred students or demonstrate the community need required by state law.
Any new application would have to restart the process and seek approval for a later school year.
Drummond dismissed the case without prejudice, meaning further legal action remains possible.
