Great Hearts Academies was founded in 2003 by Dr. Daniel Scoggin, Jay Heiler, Bob Mulhern and a group of educators in Phoenix, Arizona, beginning with just 130 students in a leased church property. The founding vision was rooted in the belief that classical education—the same system that educated America’s founding fathers and the world’s philosophers, scientists, and leaders between the 10th and 19th centuries—should be accessible to all families through tuition-free public charter schools. From its humble beginnings in Arizona, Great Hearts has methodically expanded across the Southwest, establishing Great Hearts Texas in 2011 with its first Texas campus opening in San Antonio in 2014.

Today, the network operates 47 schools across Arizona, Texas, and Louisiana, serving over 30,000 students while remaining committed to its founding mission of cultivating minds and hearts through the pursuit of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

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