Welcome to the Valley!
We’re happy to have you! As a new resident of the Valley, you may also be new to the world of charter schools. In Arizona, you’ll find nearly 600 charter schools serving roughly 220,000 students. Great Hearts has 21 K-12 academies in the Phoenix-metro area.
Great Hearts, like all charter schools, offer tuition-free academies that are publicly funded but independently run.
View Great Hearts Arizona Academies – Phoenix in a full screen map
As a charter school, we are able to offer a classical education. A classical education consists of cognitive, emotional and moral education—thinking deeply, loving noble things and living well together. We believe, with Plato, that the highest goal of education is to become good, intellectually and morally.
So what steps does it take to enroll your child at a Great Hearts academy? It’s not as complicated as you may think. There aren’t any entrance exams and we don’t charge tuition. Instead, our schools are open to all who apply. The first step is to find a school (or multiple schools) that you are willing to have your student attend, and then submit an application (which takes less than three minutes to apply).
If you apply during the Open Enrollment period, your application will be entered into a lottery. Lotteries are run when there are more applications than seats available at each school in each grade level.
If you submit your application after the open enrollment period, your application will be placed on a first-come, first-served basis following applications that were submitted during Open Enrollment. Applications are accepted year-round.
Following the lottery, offers are sent to families to accept. Offers will continue to go out until the academy has reached full capacity. If you don’t receive an offer, you can check your waitlist status anytime on the Parent Portal. Our waitlists are constantly in motion as families accept and decline offers.
We hope this clears up how the enrollment process works at our academies. We hope you’ll consider joining us!