A controversial lawsuit settlement by the State Board of Education to increase charter school funding will be a topic for discussion and decision-making by many more local school boards across Oklahoma on Monday.
At a special meeting set for 4 p.m. Monday, the Tulsa school board is to meet in executive session with its attorneys and then vote in public on whether to authorize them to proceed in that litigation pending in Oklahoma County District Court “or take any other action in the litigation determined to be appropriate by the board.”
Meanwhile, school boards in Berryhill, Collinsville, Jenks, Miami, Moore, Mustang, and Owasso will be deciding Monday whether to authorize separate legal action against the Oklahoma State Board of Education. Broken Arrow’s board is set to consider a resolution approving or disapproving of the state board’s action.
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At issue is the state board’s recent 4-3 vote over the strongly voiced objections of State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister and against the advice of the state board’s own legal counsel to settle a years-old lawsuit by the Oklahoma Public Charter School Association seeking for all charter schools an equal share of revenues from Oklahoma’s gross production, motor vehicle and rural electrification association tax collections, state school land earnings and county tax collections.
School boards in Chisolm, Lawton, Millwood, Sand Springs, Shawnee, and Yukon are among those that have already taken up resolutions or legal action authorizations.
An Oklahoma County District Court judge ruled in the fall of 2017 that attorneys for the Tulsa and Oklahoma City school districts would be allowed to intervene in the statewide charter school association’s legal battle against the state for access to more public funding.
The two inner-city school districts willingly sponsor most of the state’s charter schools, but the legal battle puts them in direct competition with charter schools for existing dollars.
Oklahoma City Public Schools already filed a petition in district court challenging the state board’s authority in the existing case and is seeking a temporary restraining order and temporary injunction to block any reallocation of revenue that currently flows only to traditional public schools.
The petition also seeks declaratory judgment about how Oklahoma statutes and the state constitution’s provisions on school funding should be interpreted, as well as on the State Board of Education’s authority.
Hofmeister blasted the March 25 surprise settlement deal, pushed through by a vote of four of Gov. Kevin Stitt’s six appointees on the state board, as a circumvention of the will of the people of Oklahoma and the state Legislature, adding: “I fear this action knowingly violated Oklahoma statute and the Oklahoma Constitution.”
If successful in court, the settlement deal could shift tens of millions of dollars to charter schools, which are deregulated, publicly funded schools operated by independent rather than elected governing boards. They enroll students according to parent choice, as opposed to residential attendance boundaries.
Any school that would be affected by the changes could go to court to challenge the legality of the state board’s actions.
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Gov. Kevin Stitt spoke March 29 about the State Board of Education's March 25 vote.
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