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Published Saturday, February 19, 2011 in Local

Odyssey, virtual school to get separate charters July 1

By Winston Skinner

The Newnan Times-Herald

Odyssey Charter School and Georgia Cyber Academy, which have operated under the same state charter for four years, will have separate charters starting July 1.

Seth Coleman, communications director for the Georgia Charter Schools Association, said the Georgia Charter Schools Commission voted Thursday to allow separate charters for Odyssey and GCA. The commission also reduced the fee it charges state charter schools by one third.

Odyssey was the first school to receive a charter from the Georgia Board of Education in 2001. The Georgia BOE action followed rejection of charter plans by the Coweta County Board of Education.

Odyssey opened in the fall of 2004 and was Coweta's first stand-alone charter. When K12, a national purveyor of curriculum materials and an operator of virtual school programs in several states, began looking at options for opening a virtual school in Georgia, the state commission did not exist.

An agreement was reached with Odyssey to include the virtual school under its charter. Initially known as Georgia Virtual Academy, the name was later changed to Georgia Cyber Academy.

Odyssey serves nearly 300 students in kindergarten through grade eight. The school is located in the Shenandoah Industrial Park. GCA has 6,000 students in 150 of Georgia's 159 counties.

"The creation of the commission made it possible for the two schools to have their own charters and operate as separate entities," Coleman said. "Both will become commission-approved charter schools officially on July 1."

"The boards of the two schools decided to see if it made sense to split and become two separate schools," said Tony Roberts, president and CEO of GGSA. "They agreed that it did."

Coleman said Odyssey "will be funded at nearly the same per pupil level as traditional public schools in Coweta County." Georgia Cyber Academy, which serves 6,000 students in 150 counties, will be funded at $5,800 per student.

Also on Thursday, GCSC voted to lower the standard fee it charges commission-approved charter schools from 3 percent to 2 percent of the per pupil funding revenue the schools receive. The change provides "a bit of a much-needed financial boost for the schools," Coleman said.

"The commission is focused on providing high quality customer service in a cost-effective manner for our schools," said Mark Peevy, GCSC executive director. "This reduction will provide more operating dollars for our schools as they serve their students."

Andy Geeter, school director at Odyssey, could not be reached Friday afternoon -- which was the last day of school before a weeklong student holiday. In a 2009 interview, Geeter explained the partnership with GCA provided extra revenue for Odyssey.

Administrative fees from GCA helped Odyssey pay teacher's assistants and meet other financial needs. The "small oversight fee ... enables us to do some things we wouldn't be able to do" otherwise, Geeter said.

The state has lumped Criterion Referenced Competency Test scores for Odyssey and GCA into one column -- Odyssey's -- since there has been a single charter. That practice has created some confusion since --at least in 2009 -- Odyssey's CRCT scores were higher than those of the virtual school, but the virtual school's students made up 96 percent of the students taking the tests.

"We think of them being separate. The state looks at us as one," Geeter observed in 2009.

GCA has its state offices in Riverdale.

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