Academics

Mission: The mission of Odyssey Charter School is to prepare students for a lifelong enthusiasm for learning, develop a keen awareness of world citizenship and culture, and establish critical thinking and problem-solving proficiency through the added learning of the Modern Greek language and Mathematics focus.

Core Philosophy: The core philosophy of Odyssey Charter School is that students from all walks of life will establish a lifelong enthusiasm for learning, will become critical thinkers and problem solvers, and will develop a keen awareness of world citizenship when challenged with a structured bilingual and rigorous core curriculum occurring in a nurturing environment.

Focus of Curriculum: Odyssey Charter Students will understand and appreciate the ideals of Hellenism, including the continual pursuit of higher education, the adoption of democratic methods, environmental sustainability, and the respect of other’s personal beliefs through exposure to the classic Greek language and culture, in a context of mathematics, science, and philosophy.

The curriculum at Odyssey Charter School is designed to provide rigorous, standards-based learning opportunities for all students. Odyssey Charter School fosters lifelong enthusiasm for learning and global, critical thinking through participation in a focused foreign language immersion program.

Aligned to the Common Core State Standards, students attending Odyssey Charter School are taught critical subject matter in both English and the Greek classical language. This focused language-immersion instruction method builds key reasoning techniques, language arts skills, and significantly strengthens the mathematical comprehension and performance of our students.

Odyssey Charter Upper School promotes independent thinking and fosters a love of learning through the teaching of Greek Language and Greek Enrichment Courses. In both seventh and eighth grades, students are exposed to a variety teaching strategies and techniques unique to OCS. Odyssey Charter school provides students with the highest quality education and was ranked the #1 Public Middle School in Delaware by K-12 and college ratings powerhouse Niche.com. Niche’s 2019 Best Schools rankings are based on academic and student life data from the U.S. Department of Education along with test scores, college data, and ratings collected from millions of Niche users.

The goal of Odyssey Charter High School is to promote college and career readiness through the added learning of the Modern Greek Language and Mathematics focus. The core philosophy of Odyssey Charter School is that students from all walks of life will establish a lifelong enthusiasm for learning, will become critical thinkers and problem solvers, and will develop a keen awareness of world citizenship when challenged with a structured bilingual and rigorous core curriculum occurring in a nurturing environment.

Mission
Our mission at OCS is to provide high quality foreign language instruction at a developmentally critical time in a student’s language development. Greek language instruction is introduced in Kindergarten and is completed in grade 12. Greek language classes aim to help students acquire communication skills as well as academic proficiency in Greek.

Assignments, assessments, and grades provide valuable feedback about what a student is learning and how they are progressing. With this information, teachers and administrators can monitor teaching and learning and make changes, if necessary, to ensure that students are provided with foundational skills and knowledge that help prepare them for success in school and beyond.Odyssey Charter School uses the following tests to evaluate student and teacher performance.

Odyssey students have access to our library at the Upper and Lower School sites. Both have picture books, fiction, and nonfiction, appropriate for the reading levels of the students. In addition, the Lower School has a good collection of beginning readers, or “easy-to-read” books.

Lower School Information

• Hours: The library is available to teachers and their classes Monday through Friday, all day.
• Checkout Procedure: The teachers facilitate the checkout, leaving a sign-out sheet with the barcodes of the books their children have borrowed. The librarian is part-time and comes in one day a week to enter the barcodes of the borrowed books into the library circulation system. She also returns the books to the system, clearing the titles from the individual student’s account.
• Overdues: Lower School students check out one book at a time. Books should be returned on the next weekly class visit to the library. Then another book can be selected. Overdue notices are sent out as friendly reminders when the book is overdue by two weeks. This will be followed by a second notice which lists a replacement cost for the book in case it is lost. There are no fines for overdue books, but weekly return is appreciated so that other children can enjoy our books.

Intermediate School Information

• Hours: The library is open to students Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday during lunch and recess times.
• Checkout Procedure: Students may borrow two books at a time for a period of one week. Books that are needed for a longer period of time should be renewed. There is no limit on the number of times a book is renewed, within reason. Students bring their selected books to the circulation desk where their last name is entered and the barcode of the book scanned into their account.
• Overdues: Overdue notices are sent out as friendly reminders when the book is overdue by two weeks. This will be followed by a second notice which lists a replacement cost for the book in case it is lost. There are no fines for overdue books, but weekly return is appreciated so that other students can enjoy our books.

Donations of books that students have outgrown or are no longer using are cheerfully accepted! If the books can be used in the library, they will be cataloged and put on the shelves for the students to borrow. Books that cannot be used in the library will be either offered to the teachers for classroom libraries or taken to 2nd & Charles for credit. Credit will be used to purchase new books for the library or to provide classroom sets as needed for reading groups.

Summer work and supply lists for the 2023-2024 school year can be accessed here. All summer work assignments are mandatory. Teachers will request them at the start of the school year.