Great Hearts Academies

Great Hearts Academies is a non-profit charter school management organization that operates a network of primary, middle, and high schools in the Phoenix, Arizona Metropolitan area and in San Antonio, Texas.^[1]

In Arizona, Great Hearts Academies had 7,469 students enrolled for the 2013-14 school year.

Curriculum

Great Hearts is a K-12 charter school that offers a humanities-based liberal arts education to the public, tuition free.^[2] It focuses on a core reading list filled with Great Books called Classics to Keep. ^[3] The Archway campuses, the elementary schools of the network, teaches phonics, spelling, handwriting, and grammar as a part of their classical curriculum. Additionally, they use the Core Knowledge curriculum (designed by E.D. Hirsch) for teaching in-depth and chronological world history and American history and geography as well as studio art and music.^[4] They use Singapore Math as their math curriculum and offer foreign language such as (depending on the school) Spanish, French, or Latin.^[5]

At the prep school level (middle and high school), students are required to study literature and composition and later humanities, as well as laboratory sciences and competitive athletics. ^[6] Great Hearts only offers one track of studies, requiring students interested in pursuing hard science careers to have solid training in humanities, and students interested in humanities majors to have solid training in the sciences^[7]

National expansion

Great Hearts Texas is a sister network to Great Hearts Arizona and its twenty three academies. Great Hearts Texas has three schools in San Antonio, and one in Irving.

Controversies

Policy on Transgender Students

In June 2016, the Great Hearts corporate Board of Directors adopted a policy that requires their transgender students to align all school activities with their biological sex, rather than the student's gender identity.^[8] The student's participation in extra curricular clubs, sports, and the use of facilities (restrooms, et. al.) all must align with the sex of the student as printed on his or her birth certificate. This requirement extends further to Great Hearts' gendered hair cutting standards, school uniform requirements, "girls line/boys line" classroom management, and daily pronoun usage.^[9]

Great Hearts' policy on transgender students is strongly opposed by local LGBT organizations and transgender advocates.^[10] Opponents to the policy argue that Great Hearts has chosen to ignore clear guidance from the medical and psychological communities regarding how best to support their transgender student population.^[11] Instead, by demanding the student's birth sex be the sole consideration with respect to the student's gender, Great Hearts is advocating for a form of conversion therapy.

Great Hearts argues that, since the civil rights of the transgender population is not yet a matter of settled law in the United States, the Board of Directors will define school policy in line with current statutory guidance and use the birth certificate as the official document that defines a student's gender.^[8]

Local Reaction

On April 25, 2017, the city council of Scottsdale, Arizona discussed whether or not to move forward with exploring a land agreement between the city and Great Hearts Academies to build an athletic complex near the community of DC Ranch. The City Council cited a number of concerns they have before finalizing any agreement with Great Hearts, chief among them, the Great Hearts policy on transgender students.^[12][13]

The Arizona chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a strongly worded press release opposing the city's partnership with Great Hearts until the discriminatory policy is replaced.^[14]

References