A New Kind of Growth – The Same Spirit of Service

A New Kind of Growth – The Same Spirit of Service
by Jerilyn Olson, Chief People Officer

One of the questions I am asked most—whether by families or colleagues—is Where will Great Hearts grow next?

It’s a natural question for a community that has burgeoned over nearly a quarter-century. From a single prep school of 107 students to 52 schools across three states, serving over 30,000 students, Great Hearts has become a home for thousands of families. We have grown brick-and-mortar academies, online schools, and faith-based private schools. But the heart of this story has never been expansion for its own sake.

Our growth has always been rooted in our Core Purpose: to cultivate the hearts and minds of students in the pursuit of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. And because that purpose is universal, and our capacities are not fixed, we have continued to grow.

Over the next five years, we plan to open six new schools and expand current campuses, creating 6,500 new seats for students. This is joyful work—and it is also hard work. Anyone who has opened a new school knows there is no tidy version of it.

At the same time, something remarkable is happening beyond us.

The Movement Is Growing
Across the country, the classical education movement is expanding at a remarkable pace. A recent national report from Arcadia Education estimates that in the 2023–24 school year, 1,551 classical schools enrolled 677 ,521 students, with projections of as many as 2,500 classical schools serving 1.4 million students by 2035.

We have met many small charter and independent classical schools—some newly founded, others long established—who are longing for support, for community, and for the wisdom of others who have walked this path before. Each has a slightly different story and a different set of needs. And because the tradition is not something we own but something we steward, we have loved engaging with others about their growth.

Through the National Symposium for Classical Education, where more than 800 educators gathered this year (most from outside Great Hearts), we have found ourselves part of a larger conversation about sustaining the healthy growth of the movement. For years, teachers and school leaders from outside our network have joined our professional development courses. It seems the time has come to offer more of what we have received and cultivated over many years.

And so we began to ask an important question: How might we serve those who are already growing?

The Birth of Great Hearts Services
Great Hearts Services has now emerged from this question—a new way of extending our mission outward. Here is where we have begun:

• Professional Development
  Schools across the country are now joining the same professional development experiences we offer our own teachers and leaders. In some cases, our teams are traveling to their campuses to offer full faculty training rooted in classical pedagogy and practice.

• Teacher Resource Portal
  Partner schools are gaining access to the Great Hearts Teacher Resource Portal—the curriculum tools, lesson materials, and content-rich training created for our own classrooms.

• Partner School Pilots
  We are piloting a small cohort of Great Hearts Partner Schools—schools that share our core convictions about curriculum, pedagogy, and the formation of the human person. These schools retain their governing autonomy while connecting deeply with our network. In these partnerships, Great Hearts America can provide fractional or full-service operational support, depending on what the school needs to flourish.

How Is It Going?
As with any good work, we are learning. We are meeting schools in different contexts, asking what they love, listening to what they need. And many teams across Great Hearts America have stepped in with generosity and skill.

Jason Doughty, who serves both as Executive Director for Louisiana and as the primary point of contact for Partner Schools, put it beautifully: “We have a rare opportunity to humbly share with trusted friends the wisdom we have gained over decades—often through hard lessons—so that they may flourish in their leadership of classical schools.”

Does This Distract From Serving Our Own Schools?
It is a fair question, and we honor it.

Our commitment to our existing academies is unwavering. At the same time, prudent growth has always strengthened us. Each new school and each new colleague has widened our vision and sharpened our wisdom. Growth—when rightly ordered—brings vitality. It reminds us that our mission is larger than any single campus.

We would not be who we are today had we not once taken risks on new ideas, new models, new regions. A growing organization is a learning organization.

Where Might We Go Next?
We see early patterns. Schools most often reaching out to us fall into three groups:

• Start‑ups seeking guidance and stability.
• Young schools wanting to join a mission aligned network to pursue excellence.
• Existing schools considering a shift to a classical model with greater clarity and fidelity.

We will continue to grow judiciously in accordance with what we are learning. But wherever we go, our mission will remain the same.

A foundational paradox of classical education is the fact that it is at once timeless and timely— precisely because it is rooted in that which is lasting, it can adapt so readily to the needs of today. And because of that there is no shortage of hopeful, challenging, and invigorating work for us to pursue.

About Great Hearts Services:
Want to learn more? Visit the Great Hearts Services website: https://services.greatheartsamerica.org

About the Author:
Jerilyn Olson is the Chief People Officer of Great Hearts. Jerilyn’s education began as a homeschooled student through the eighth grade, at which point she attended one of the first public charter schools in the nation with a classical curriculum. She then continued her education by attending Claremont McKenna College, a liberal arts college in Southern California, where she double-majored in Literature and Government. After helping found the second school in the Great Hearts network and teaching for 6 years, she began working to support the growing community of faculty. During her tenure, she has also completed a Master’s degree in Humanities with a Classical Education Concentration through The University of Dallas.She and her husband live in the Phoenix area and delight in watching their three children thrive in a classical education environment.

Do you have a story or know of one that you would like to see featured at Great Hearts? Please contactjmoore@greatheartsamerica.org.

Submit a student application to a Great Hearts Academy by visiting: https://www.greatheartsamerica.org/enroll/.