GALVESTON — Just in time for its 10th anniversary, Galveston charter school Odyssey Academy has a new and bigger campus that has allowed it to enroll more students.
Hurricane Ike on Sept. 13 flooded the academy’s campus at 901 13th St., destroying everything on the school’s first floor and forcing teachers and 400 students to attend classes at Moody Memorial First United Methodist Church on 53rd Street.
The school negotiated with H-E-B to lease the company’s grocery store, 2412 61st St., which also was flooded during Ike.
Volunteers and parents helped the school move furniture into the building, while a contractor transformed the grocery store into a school.
The academy, which emphasizes math, science and technology, more than doubled its space — from 35,000 square feet at its old campus to 78,000 square feet — allowing the academy to enroll more than 500 students in prekindergarten through eighth grade.
The academy hopes to eventually buy the entire shopping center and expand classrooms into some of the other shops, Principal Jennifer Goodman said.
Goodman said she was pleased with the new space, which she said allows the academy to provide more technology, including individual laptops, hands-on lessons and outdoor activities.
The bigger space also allows the academy to offer more enrichment classes, including guitar, media and robotics courses.
A $100,000 grant from the Bush-Clinton fund allowed the academy to buy new furniture, including desks and chairs.
It’s the first time since Odyssey Academy was founded in 1999 that the school has new furniture, instead of hand-me-downs from Texas A&M University at Galveston and the University of Texas Medical Branch.
Although the academy initially had planned to build a new school, Goodman said it made much more sense to take over the empty space left behind by H-E-B.
“We have revitalized it for something for the kids of this community,” she said.
