Compass gets charter

An Odessa charter school is one step closer to opening.

The Texas State Board of Education has approved a charter for Compass Academy, which will initially accept 276 students in kindergarten, first and second grades. Now the school faces several challenges before it opens in August 2011.

CrossRoads Fellowship senior pastor Griffin Jones, who heads the charter school’s board, said the first order of business is to deal with several “contingencies” the state board put in place, mainly requiring the school to clean up some “verbiage” in its plans.

“They’re really just, from the state perspective, making sure that we have all the I’s dotted and the T’s crossed,” Jones said.

After that, the school’s board will look at hiring a principal and other administrators, and teachers for the 12 classes it will have, four in each grade. Jones said the school would add a grade each year until the initial class of second-graders are seniors in high school.

“We’ll build from the bottom up,” he said.

Another task will be finding a location for the school. Though it is looking at a couple of sites, Jones said the school would not be on CrossRoads’ northeastern Odessa campus.

“One of the things that is the mission of our church is to be a blessing to our community,” Jones said. “We want to be a spiritual lighthouse. We don’t want to be an island out here at (Highway) 191 and Billy Hext.”

Jones said that, while the school was initiated by CrossRoads officials and has received financial support from church members, the school is a separate 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.

Fundraising will also be an issue for the school. Jones said that while the state funds the school the same way it funds the Ector County Independent School District, Compass Academy doesn’t get money from local property taxes the way ECISD does.

“We have to operate more efficiently, but sometimes size costs more to operate,” he said.

And because charter schools receive state funding for each student, Compass Academy will be required to meet state curriculum guidelines, meaning it can’t have faith-based or religious programs. It is also forbidden from hiring based on religious requirements.

At one point, CrossRoads considered starting a private school, which would have allowed it to teach religious curriculum, said Reggie Baker, CrossRoads administrative pastor. But administrators felt the charter route would benefit more people.

“We thought about that, but at the same time, you limit the population of people who can take advantage of a school that offers more rigorous academia,” Baker said.

Still, Baker hopes the school will help build better individuals.

“It’s guided by the educational principals of leadership and character development that the church also embraces,” he said.

State law prohibits charter schools from using admissions testing, so if applications exceed the allotted number of students, a lottery will be held to determine who gets into Compass Academy. Baker said it would be held in the spring.

While CrossRoads members and officials are well-represented on the board, not everyone is a member of the church. Adela Vasquez, a retired ECISD guidance director, said she joined Compass Academy’s board to help give more opportunities to students.

Ultimately, she said she feels the school will benefit ECISD.

“I think it will be a good complement to the community of Odessa and to ECISD,” Vasquez said. “We do have overcrowding on some of our campuses, and this will eventually allow the community to grow.”