High School at Odyssey
Odyssey High School is where Cherokee mythology meets formal logic, where Reed Creek water quality testing connects to systems thinking about environmental justice, and where students spend Wednesday mornings hiking to Catawba Falls or learning biochar-burning techniques at Tater Knob Farm before returning to analyze the meter and rhyme scheme of Harlem Renaissance poetry.
Our high school exceeds North Carolina's graduation requirements through a curriculum that refuses the false choice between rigor and creativity, between academic preparation and authentic engagement with the world. At least 20% of every week is dedicated to Outdoor and Service Learning—not as enrichment, but as foundational to how students understand themselves as part of larger systems.
Teachers bring deep expertise in their disciplines alongside genuine creative practice: they're mathematicians who see proofs as detective mysteries, historians who explore the politics of land ownership through the lens of introduced species, scientists who teach chemistry as learning to "speak the language of science." Classes are small enough for real intellectual discourse, where a ninth grader's question about self-reliance can lead the whole group into Emerson and Thoreau, then pivot to formal logic to assess argument validity. The Six Strands ensure that even as we prepare students for college, we never lose sight of the whole person—intellectually curious, emotionally grounded, connected to place and community.
What makes Odyssey High so different?
The school year begins with Journey Week, when new and returning students spend days together away from academics—building trust, practicing communication, learning to work through discomfort together. This isn't team-building theater; it's the foundation that makes everything else possible. When students can show up authentically with each other, they can take real intellectual risks. High school is hard enough without the emotional tax of pretending to be someone you're not.
Throughout the year, the community creates structures that catch students before they fall. Struggling in a class? Directed Study Hall provides targeted support while the problem's still small. When conflicts arise, Circle practice provides a restorative path that centers dignity over punishment—students and teachers sit together as equals to address harm and make meaning collectively. When a schedule pivot was needed, film appreciation and figure drawing classes emerged within days; adults here understand that responsive, creative problem-solving matters more than rigid adherence to plan. The high school celebrates Friendsgiving with a feast, then students make burritos and take them downtown to anyone who's hungry, practicing the kind of care that extends beyond your own circle.
This place takes adolescents seriously. Students run Coffee Night open mics to fundraise for end-of-year trips. Seventh and eighth graders join high schoolers on Crossover Wednesdays. Elder's Day brings generations together. The Festival of Light becomes whole-school celebration with high schoolers performing a rendition of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit with a violin and accordion holding down the melody line. And the academic work stays grounded in the real world: students don't just read about watersheds—they're measuring turbidity and dissolved oxygen in Reed Creek, tracking macroinvertebrate bio-indicators, following their own tap water from source to treatment plant to school fountain. Classes stay small enough that teachers know each student's thinking, challenges, and gifts—students can take intellectual risks because their dignity is never on the line.
What is an Odyssey graduate like?
Odyssey graduates know who they are. They've spent years in a community valuing authenticity and treating failures as essential to learning. They leave with sophisticated intellectual skills—analyzing complex arguments, identifying logical fallacies, writing across genres, thinking systemically about environmental and social challenges. They engage respectfully in difficult conversations and respond to uncertainty with creativity.
Academically, students score in the 75th percentile nationally in reading and 63rd percentile in math on MAP assessments. More importantly, they leave as independent thinkers who know how to learn—who tackle unfamiliar problems, ask meaningful questions, and persist through intellectual challenges. They've studied American Transcendentalism alongside Cherokee mythology, learned formal logic while reading Their Eyes Were Watching God, explored medieval trade routes and Edo Japan. They've made presentations, written analysis essays using literary theory they selected, created collaborative projects.
Odyssey graduates see themselves as capable agents of positive change. They understand learning happens everywhere—in the Wordsmith's Forge and Math Matrix and Histories Den, but also on five-mile hikes, while burning biochar, passing out burritos to folks in need downtown, performing for their community. They know rigorous thinking happens where people genuinely care for each other, where Wednesday adventures ground abstract academic concepts in lived experience. They're prepared for college, yes. But they're also prepared for a skillful and brilliant life.
Creating your path at Odyssey High
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Meet the High School teachers
hadley cluxton
Andrew Rabin
Lisa Smith
Gabe Johnson
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High School Social Studies
Hello wonderful High School students and families! I'm hadley. I am thrilled to be returning for my seventh year of teaching High School History at Odyssey.
This year we are offering World History (9/10 grades) and American Environmental History (11/12 grades). In World History will begin our survey around 1200 CE and work our way towards the present, discussing many pivotal moments in the histories of the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Asia as well as the impacts that these global regions had on the shaping of western Europe. In American Environmental History we will be dipping into the rich, complex interrelations of humans and other-than-humans across the beautiful land now called America.
I look forward to being in conversation with you all this school year!
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High School English
Hello and welcome (or welcome back)! This is my thirteenth year as Odyssey’s High School English teacher! I have two children, one of which recently graduated from Odyssey, and the other who is starting the 9th grade. This year I’ll be teaching American Literature to 9th and 10th graders, and Modern Literature to the 11th and 12th grade students. I’m excited to incorporate new Native American voices in the American Lit class, and to explore the complexity of the modern world in my Modern Lit class.
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High School Math
I am excited to be officially joining the Odyssey community as the high school math teacher. An Asheville local, I grew up in Leicester, attended Erwin Middle and High Schools, and drove into Asheville most days after school for innumerable theater rehearsals and shows. Like many math teachers, I also have a background in science. With a BA in Geology from Amherst College and an MA in Teaching for Earth Science from the American Museum of Natural History in NYC, I have taught every math, science, and acting class (plus some) from 6th grade through 12th.
I also have more than a decade of experience as a test-prep expert, helping to prepare students for the SAT and ACT. Through this, I found a love of not only teaching math but also helping students to build tools and practices to support their own learning and mental/emotional health. I recognise that students often have wildly disparate experiences with math, and many of those experiences are less than conducive to growth and learning. I aim to foster a safe and welcoming math classroom that both challenges students and helps them grow their own self-confidence and self-knowledge. And hopefully to make math a little interesting and fun along the way.
In my out-of-school time, I love reading, dancing, making chocolates and other treats, and hiking in these beautiful mountains I get to call home.
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High School Science, High School Director
My name is Andrew Rabin, and I am excited to be serving as the High School Director as well as the High School Science teacher this year. I am very excited to be returning to this awesome community of learners for my tenth year at Odyssey. I have been teaching high school science for twenty-five years, and I have my undergraduate degree in Biology and a Master’s degree in Ecological Teaching and Learning. I am also the proud parent of Noah, a recent Odyssey graduate and Phoebe, a 12th grader at Asheville High. I love science, and I am excited to share my passion for science with you all. I am also excited about sharing some of my many other interests with students such as cooking, bird watching, bike riding, ultimate frisbee, and playing the banjo. This year the science classes being offered are: Earth Science and Chemistry.
Some High School Updates
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