Great Hearts Academies expanding with new Buckeye, Anthem campuses

PHOENIX — Great Hearts Academies, an Arizona-based network of nonprofit public charter schools, recently announced plans to expand with new campuses in Buckeye and Anthem.

The new Buckeye location, Roosevelt Preparatory Academy, is slated to debut in the fall of 2022 while Anthem Preparatory Academy will open an upsized and newly built permanent home in time for the 2022-23 school year.

“With over 8,000 waitlisted students across the Valley, Great Hearts is honored to have the opportunity to serve more families,” Great Hearts Arizona President Erik Twist said in a press release.

“A new K-12 academy in Buckeye will bring over 1,000 new seats into the West Valley. We are also pleased that our Anthem students will soon be walking through the doors of a new campus, providing them an exceptional setting for world class academics, athletic, and after school activities.”

Great Hearts Academies is also expanding its current Trivium Preparatory Academy in Goodyear to increase capacity and meet demands in the West Valley, which is the first project as part of the expansion.

Two new sections per grade will be added at Archway Trivium, along with new classrooms for Trivium Prep, an additional multi-purpose room and a readjustment of the football field on the current plot of land that Trivium occupies.

The new approximately 82,000-square-feet Anthem academy – two miles away from the school’s current location – includes a two-story design that will feature a large gym, football/soccer field, lab rooms, special education rooms, library and more to serve students in grades K-12, according to the release.

The Roosevelt Campus at Jackrabbit Trail and Van Buren Street, scheduled to begin construction in the fall of 2021, will serve approximately 800 K-8 students when it opens and expand each grade level until it becomes a fully enrolled K-12 campus with 1,100 students at full capacity.

At 25 acres in size, the new location will be the largest of any of the schools in the network, according to the release, and be the first Great Hearts school with large roman columns throughout for an architectural design that lends to a more classical look.

Named after Quentin Roosevelt, the youngest son of the 26th President of the United States, Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt and First Lady Edith Roosevelt, the school’s mascot will be the Aces in honor of Quentin who died as a pursuit pilot in aerial combat over Germany during World War I.

Great Hearts Academies currently operates 23 schools and 12 campuses across Arizona, with the Roosevelt campus becoming the 24th school and 13th campus, part of 33 tuition-free public charter schools in greater Phoenix and Texas that serve more than 22,000 students.

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