Up and coming: Odyssey sails into improved scores

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2002 | 11:28 a.m.

When the Odyssey Charter School of Las Vegas wound up on a state list of low-performing schools last year for posting low numbers on a basic skills exam, administrators struggled to explain the reasons.

The school, offering distance learning to elementary students, was just a year old when the test was given in the fall of 2000, and nearly all of the pupils had been with the program less than two months.

The school community, where parents and teachers are considered equally important to a child's success, vowed to redouble its efforts and prove this innovative approach to education could work.

Odyssey was one of six Clark County schools placed by the Nevada Department of Education on a list of low-performing schools following the 2000 TerraNova Basic Skills Test, given every year to students in grades four, eight and 10. Schools with 40 percent or more of its students finishing in the bottom quarter on the exam are placed on the state's "needs improvement" list.

Odyssey's test scores from the fall of 2001 show a dramatic improvement over the first year -- the number of low-performing fourth graders dropped from 40 to 17 percent and the eighth grade numbers went from 35 to 24 percent.

"The new scores are a validation," said Vee Wilson, chief education officer for Odyssey, who spent 34 years with the Clark County School District. "We're pleased to see the hard work by our students, their families and our teachers is paying off."

The school lets kindergarten through eighth grade students work at home on computers with face-to-face meetings once a week with their teachers to review the lessons. Parents are required to supervise some study and sign off on students' time logs, Wilson said. The charter school plans to launch its high school program next year.

David Price, co-founder of Odyssey, remembers the day more than 10 years ago when he and Wilson, his mentor, spent an afternoon imagining what kind of school they would create if given the chance.

"We always believed the magic formula for achievement is the best teachers, parents committed to education and technological tools," Price said Tuesday. "In the Odyssey concept, I think we've seen it come together."

Price, who is principal of Cox Elementary School in Henderson and serves as an educational consultant to Odyssey, said the impressive gains in the TerraNova scores are backed up by the charter school's results on the Peabody Individual Acheivement Test. The PIAT, given at the beginning and end of the school year, measures students' individual knowledge, Price said. Odyssey's students all showed more than a year's growth in all subjects from 2000 to 2001, Price said.

Like all charter schools, Odyssey is considered a public school because it is funded by the state. Charter schools must be approved by the school district board, but are not subject to the same regulations as county-run schools. There is no tuition.

The charter school uses two rented modular classrooms on the New Horizons Academy campus for its offices and science lab. The school has students in kindergarten through high school. About 15 percent of Odyssey's students qualify for special education, compared with just over 10 percent districtwide, said Michele Robinson, assistant principal.

The student population includes a wide range of pupils, from gifted to learning disabled, Carole Hattar, Odyssey's director of community education, said.

"We have 450 students, and there are 450 unique reasons why they are here," said Hattar, whose son Jordan attends the school. "What the students have in common is parents who come to this program because they want to be actively involved in their child's education and see it as a collaborative process."7"The new scores are a validation."