State, Odyssey plan negotiations

Monday, May 1, 2000 | 10:55 a.m.

The state and representatives of the troubled Odyssey Charter School have agreed to begin negotiations over funding the school says it is owed.

An initial hearing on a lawsuit filed by parents of Odyssey students was to be held in District Court Thursday but was pulled off the calendar at the parents' request, state schools Superintendent Mary Peterson said.

The state pulled Odyssey's funding because an audit could account for only 55 students when the school claimed it had 336 enrolled on Sept. 17, the date the state uses to calculate official enrollment.

The state had already given Odyssey more than $1 million, based on $4,494 per pupil, Peterson has said previously.

Parents who filed the lawsuit seeking to prevent the state from withholding funding have said more than 260 students would be displaced if Odyssey closes.

The school, which opened last fall for kindergarten through eighth grade, allowed students to work on computers at home while meeting with teachers once a week to review progress.

Peterson said Thursday she was working on a solution butcould not give details because negotiations were ongoing.

Assemblyman Wendell Williams, D-Las Vegas, was much more outspoken about the school, citing the questionable nature of the curriculum and its limited number of instructor-students hours.

"I don't think the school should have been granted a charter to begin with because there is really no difference between it and a home school," he said.