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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