In a meeting that lasted just over two minutes Monday morning, the Coweta County Board of Education rejected the fourth proposal for a charter school by the Odyssey Group.

The dismissal of the petition angered Odyssey School organizers, who thought they had supplied the school system all of the information to pass the petition.

“It's unfortunate that the Coweta County school board continues to persist in taking actions which reflect so negatively on the school system where there are so many excellent people working in education in the county and there are many good things going on here,” said Odyssey organizer Jan Buchwald.

Buchwald said the school board at its Aug. 10 meeting instructed Odyssey officials to meet with the school system's staff to address concerns.

Odyssey organizers met with the school representatives and expected the board to approve the petition since it had addressed the concerns of school officials.

Since the board did not approve the petition, a fifth petition by Odyssey organizers would fall under the school system's new charter school policy.

The new policy is far more restrictive than the Georgia Charter Schools Act, Buchwald said.

“Our school board's actions clearly continue to keep the spotlight on the need for legislative changes. Without improved legislation, parent-organized charter schools in Georgia are going to be extremely rare,” she said.

Superintendent of education Richard Brooks said the board turned down the petition because Odyssey School officials had submitted another petition Sept. 30 and the board had to deal with the fourth petition before it could consider the one submitted last week.

Brooks said the board would have to decide on the latest petition by Nov. 30 and said it would fall under the system's new policy, which calls for a site to be identified.

The Odyssey charter school efforts started in April when the first petition was proposed to the school board.

Back to News Home Page | Back to the top of the page