Parents hopeful of sending their children to Coweta's first charter school will have to wait until at least next January, after a ruling this week by the county's Board of Education.

The school board turned down a petition by Jan Buchwald to start Odyssey School, but the board did decide to review the petition in another 60 days.

The discussion over starting the school has been raging since April, when Buchwald first informed the board of her intentions

The General Assembly passed a law in 1997 allowing charter schools. Charter schools generally allow more parental involvement in curriculum and also allow the schools to hire professionals in various fields to help teach the curriculum.

The dispute went to mediation when the Odyssey group felt it was not given a fair hearing by the Coweta County School Board April 23.

The group took their concerns to the state Board of Education, who ordered the mediation.

After the mediation, Brooks said he felt progress was made and another meeting would be scheduled for late next week.

In the system's opening statement that he released to the press, Brooks outlined a number of problems the system had with the proposed school

One of the system's main objections concerns the school's proposed facility. The charter school petition states the facility will be leased at 1347 Reese Road in Sharpsburg.

After this week's vote, Buchwald said school organizers are looking at different facilities, but wanted to wait until the board approved its concept before revealing the sites to the public.

Going into this week's meeting, Buchwald said she felt she had addressed many of the school board's concerns about the school.

“I just don't know what to do at this point. They haven't implemented a policy, so it's a little difficult. I thought we had created changes in the petition that they asked for,” she said.

Within the next three weeks, Buchwald and representatives will meet again to try and iron out some of the school system's problems.

Buchwald remains optimistic, although she had to get Odyssey School's phone bank system working this week to inform parents that they should have their students start school at the county's regular schools.

The school has a goal of opening with 100 students and Buchwald hopes it can open in January.

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