
Photo by Roy L. Williams.
Odyssey Early Schools
Bob Mitchell, center, with the staff of Odyssey Early School in Inverness.
When Paula and Dr. Bob Mitchell retired in 1993 after a long career in public education, the couple dreamed of creating an educational childcare program for infants through age 5.
Paula spent the last 19 years of her career as an elementary principal in Mountain Brook, and Bob had served as the first superintendent of Hoover City Schools. Their vision, Odyssey Early Schools, was born in June 1995 with the opening of their first location in Inverness at 104 Heatherbrooke Park. In 2001, they added a second location, Odyssey Trace Crossings, at 401 Emery Dr. in Hoover.
In September, Odyssey Early Schools is holding a special 20th anniversary celebration. Bob and Paula’s son, also named Bob Mitchell, bought the business from his parents in 2004. The younger Mitchell said it is an honor to continue the family tradition of educating the public.
Odyssey offers a varied curriculum, including language development, math, science, Spanish and sign language. There are also arts and crafts, a music program, dance, gymnastics and soccer.
“When I meet someone new and tell them what I do, I’m quick to point out that we do so much more than any ordinary day care,” Mitchell said. “It’s just an incredible breadth of offerings that gets our children ready to be successful, life-long learners by the time they go off to kindergarten.”
Mitchell said Odyssey Inverness has grown substantially since opening in June 1995. The facility opened with nine classrooms and 170 students.
“Within two years, we had long waiting lists and in 1999, we bought some adjoining land and built a new 6,000-square-foot addition that brought our Inverness capacity to 220 students,” he said.
Mitchell focuses on making Odyssey a fun place to go to school and to work, from teacher dress-up day to fairytale balls and hosting all sorts of parties. The staff focuses on meeting “the needs of an individual child who might need a different learning approach.”
“Our families know that our teachers genuinely care about providing a fun learning environment for their children each day. We’ve also remained laser-focused on the quality of the program,” Mitchell said.
The school has also had staff members, including campus director Annie Fine and Trace Crossings director Amanda Bentley, who have been at Odyssey for 15 years or more.
“If your child went to Odyssey in the 1990s and is getting ready to go off to college, they can come back to visit and see the exact same faces they saw each morning when they were in preschool,” Mitchell said.
One of Odyssey’s unique offerings is an Internet video monitoring system for families to see what their children are doing during the day.
“They report that the peace of mind that they get from being able to log onto the Internet and watch their child’s day was essential in their decision to attend Odyssey,” Mitchell said. “I am so proud that we offer this to our families because it puts them directly into their child’s classroom every day.”
When Mitchell got involved in his parents’ business early on, he envisioned Odyssey as being the next big daycare chain. From what he has learned over the past 20 years, though, he said as long as he owns Odyssey, there won’t be another location.
“I just don’t believe that that type of growth is conducive to maintaining quality or to building personal relationships,” Mitchell said. “I want to keep seeing our children head off to kindergarten already reading and writing and truly excited about learning. I want Odyssey to continue to have a tangible impact on the quality of childcare in Birmingham.”