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8^th Grade Trip: As a culminating activity of their “classical education” in their final year at Odyssey, 8^th grade students (and their parents) are provided the opportunity to go on an educational—and very fun—trip to one of three “classical” destinations. The tour’s location rotates every year among Greece, Italy, and Great Britain. For more information see Upper Grades.

     

Business Manager: Our full-time Business Manager is responsible for many operational details so that our Director can focus on academic implementation.

 

Carpool Sticker & Lanes: All families must have one of these stickers, whether carpooling with another family or not. We have several hundred students and none of them are walking or riding their bikes home! For (1) safety and (2) efficiency, the school is divided by city into lanes and each family at the school is issued a carpool sticker that identifies—by color and number—which students go with which car. On wild-weather days, students are held inside until their ride arrives at the front of the school, so they must know their sticker number on those days.

 

Charter: An 86-page document researched and written by our Founders and approved (unanimously) by the Utah State Office of Education on December 3, 2004. Once approved, a charter becomes a legal contract between the state and the newly formed school: essentially, we agree to follow the law and do what we said we would do in the charter and they agree to pay us to educate the students we enroll. A 15-page OCS Charter Abridgement (the less technical parts) is available on our website.

 

Classical Education: As described in our charter, classical education is the special emphasis of instruction at OCS. For guidance in this area, we have used “The Well-Trained Mind” by Jesse Wise and Susan Wise Bauer. See other Glossary definitions for Trivium, Grammar Phase, Logic Phase, Rhetoric Phase.

 

Committee Chair: Committee chairs are parent volunteers who lead other volunteers in specific services to the school. (e.g. Communications, Fundraising, etc.) At OCS, these committees provide the structure for parent volunteers, replacing other schools’ Parent-Teacher Organizations. For more information, see Parent Involvement.

 

Core Knowledge: Developed by E.D. Hirsch, the Core Knowledge Sequence provides content for the classical education at OCS. One of its advantages is that it keeps students from learning some topics more than once and other topics not at all. For example, for World History, all first graders study Ancient Egypt, the geography of Africa & the Sahara Desert, the importance of the Nile River, pharaohs, pyramids, mummies and Hieroglyphics. For more details, see the books “What your ___ Grader Needs to Know” or the CK website.  http://coreknowledge.org/CK/index.htm

 

Curriculum: Generally, a curriculum guides either one or both of the following: (1) delivery—how knowledge is communicated between teacher and student or (2) content—what knowledge is taught. At OCS, Classical Education is our special emphasis with Core Knowledge used for content and direct instruction for delivery.

 

Direct Instruction (D.I.): Used as a method of delivery, Direct Instruction uses highly interactive lessons presented to small groups of students, with flexible grouping of students by performance level and frequent assessment of student progress. The use of teacher “scripts” is designed to accelerate learning by making presentations more clear and rule out likely misinterpretations. For example, if 5+4 is (and always will be) 9, then this is what the teacher will teach and this is what the students will learn, without taking time to deeply examine the “whys and hows” of 5+4=9. (According to the trivium, older students are better able to address this type of “why and how” inquiry.)

 

Director:  aka Principal. Many charters use this different name to reflect that the administrator of an independent public charter school has many responsibilities beyond that of a traditional school principal.

 

Early-Out Day: On Wednesdays, school ends at 1:15pm, but teachers and staff do NOT get out early! They use this time to discuss how to better serve our students and improve our school. The reason it is on Wednesdays is so that teachers can immediately implement the results of the meeting (without a weekend in between).

 

Founders: Parents who worked for one to two years before Odyssey opened to research curricula, study applicable state and federal laws, design a governance model, write the charter application, hold public information meetings, and so much more. None of our founders were paid a penny for their time or skills and may have donated anywhere from 100 to over 1,000 hours (no, that is not a typo) to open the doors of OCS to all. In return, founders receive enrollment “preference”, which essentially means that their kids get in the school no matter how many are on the waiting list.

 

Grammar Phase: Referring to age levels in grades 1-4, students in the Grammar Phase soak up knowledge quickly and easily. Instruction in this age group focuses on this strength by presenting lots of new information.

 

Governing Board: This 5-member group of volunteers is responsible for keeping the school working toward its mission and philosophy. GB Officers serve 2-year terms and their seats are then filled by candidates voted in by parents. GB elections are held in May each year.

 

Instructors: Our instructors work under the direction of our teachers and direct learning in some Achievement Groups. Qualifications for instructors are determined by state law.

 

Learning Plan: This is the piece of paper sent home by your student’s teacher that lists daily learning objectives and any homework for one week at a time. Students should bring their Learning Plan to and from school every day so that parents are informed of their progress.

 

Logic Phase: Referring to age levels in grades 5-8, students in the Logic Phase begin to ask “why?” to everything. Instruction in this age group presents the same areas of knowledge first introduced in younger grades while leading students to organize information and understand the way facts fit together into a logical framework.

 

Lottery: State and Federal law require students of a charter school to be chosen “randomly”. After continuing students and those with legal preference are admitted, remaining students are chosen randomly by computerized lottery. For more information see  Enrollment FAQ's.

 

Preference: There are two types of enrollment “preferences”: founder and sibling. These preferences are defined by state and federal law. Students who qualify for one of these preferences are admitted to the school before others on the waiting list.

 

PTA: OCS does NOT have a PTA! Instead, our parents and teachers are organized into committees that provide all the volunteer needs and expertise that the school requires.

 

Rhetoric Phase: Referring to age levels in grades 9-12, students in the Rhetoric Phase develop a deeper understanding of the knowledge they have gained and learn to examine and communicate it to others.

 

Sibling Preference: As allowed by law, siblings of currently enrolled students are offered open positions at the school before others on the waiting list. OCS uses the sibling preference because it keeps families together as much as possible! For more information see Enrollment FAQ's.

 

Teachers: Teachers in charter schools are, by state law, required to meet the same certification standards as those in other public schools. Period.

 

Traditional Public School: aka Neighborhood public school or district school. These rather bulky names are preferred by friends of charter schools because they communicate a distinction while allowing for the fact that charter schools are public schools too!

 

Trivium: A major premise of classical education is that students are best taught in accordance with their developmental age. Trivium, meaning “three roads”, refers specifically to the Grammar Phase (grades 1-4), the Logic Phase (grades 5-8), and the Rhetoric Phase (grades 9-12).

 

Upper Grades: Students in grades 6-8 at Odyssey are distinguished as “Upper Grades” in order to provide them with additional options and support in their education. For more information see Upper Grades.

 

Volunteer Committees: The main purpose for volunteer committees is to allow parents to volunteer at the school in a specific area of their choosing, while protecting against having a small set of volunteers “stuck” with running all the programs. Supervised and supported by school staff, Odyssey has 12 committees in which parents can be involved in their children’s education: After-School Programs, Communications, Curriculum Enhancement Teams (CET), Events, Fundraising & Grants, Kudos, Library, Music, Room Parents, Safety, Technology, and Upper Grades.  For more information see Parent Involvement.

 

Volunteer Hours: Our charter school is based on a model of volunteerism -- that OCS parents want to be involved in their children’s education. Parents are asked to donate 40 hours of volunteer time (20 hours for single-parent families) each year. Hours are reported each week.