Odyssey School

This article is about a school in San Mateo, California. For the school in Moncton, New Brunswick, see École L'Odyssée. For the school in North Bay, Ontario, see École publique l'Odyssée.

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	This article contains content that is written like Suburban, 3.5 acres (0.7 km²)
Website	Official website

Odyssey School is a private middle school in San Mateo, California, a town about 15 miles (24 km) south of San Francisco. Founded in 1998, Odyssey caters to students in grades 6 through 8.^[1] Its five academic core subjects consist of mathematics, science, history/ social studies, language arts, and Japanese. Other courses include creative arts, karate, yoga, social and emotional learning, and various faculty-chosen electives. Students may elect to pursue advanced mathematics and/ or Japanese studies following the completion of sixth grade.^{[citation needed}

Many Odyssey graduates attend college-preparatory schools such as Woodside Priory School, Crystal Springs Uplands School, Junípero Serra High School, and Menlo School, as well as local public high schools. Odyssey graduates later continue their studies at four-year colleges and universities such as UC Berkeley, Stanford, Duke, and NYU.^{[citation needed]}

Odyssey's founding Head of School, Stephen K. Smuin, has been a teacher and school administrator for many years. He had been head of middle school at the Nueva School, a private K-12 school in Hillsborough, California, but was ousted by the school board following allegations of abusive behavior towards a former student.^[2] He is the author of three books on writing technique, including "More than Metaphors: Strategies for Teaching Process Writing."^[3] He retired in June 2010.

In July 2010, Daniel Popplewell joined Odyssey as its new Head of School.^[4] He had been dean of teaching and learning at Bentley School in Lafayette, California. He was succeeded in July 2013 by Stephen P. Lane, who had been head of Santa Barbara Middle School.

After a decade as head, Lane stepped down in July 2023 and was succeeded by Jon Hale, a math teacher at Odyssey since 2012 and assistant head of school under Lane.^{[citation needed]}

References