Common questions and answers about Great Hearts Arizona academies
No. Great Hearts does not offer pre-Kindergarten.
No. Per Arizona state guidelines (A.R.S. § 15-821(C)) Great Hearts does not offer early Kindergarten positions or early entrance testing for kindergarten. Kindergarten students must turn 5 years old by August 31st in the year in which they are enrolling for kindergarten.
Great Hearts academies are public and tuition-free, so no tuition may be charged for grades 1-12, or for half-day Kindergarten. For parents who desire their Kindergarten student to attend full-day kindergarten, a tuition of $375 per month is charged August to May.
Great Hearts is unable to determine your child’s chances of being offered a spot. Initial offers for the upcoming school year will be extended in mid-January after the Enrollment Lottery. If you do not receive an offer at that time, you will receive a waitlist position, which you may track via our Parent Portal. Additionally, offers will continue to be sent out through the school year as seats become available.
In addition to completing the online application, each student must have • Proof of age and identity (e.g., a birth certificate. Passports may not be used.) • Proof of Arizona residency (e.g., Active (unexpired) driver’s license or a utility bill no more than three months old that matches the address on the application.) • Immunization records • Custody/court documents if applicable
No. Great Hearts does not offer busing or transportation to and from school.
No. As public charter schools, students are not required to reside within certain district boundaries to attend a Great Hearts academy. The student must be an Arizona resident and have transportation to get to the academy.
Great Hearts’ waitlist is ordered based on application type and any applicable priority status (e.g., sibling or transfer priority). When a seat becomes available it is offered to the first applicant on the waitlist. Applicants may move up or down the waitlist depending on application priority and/or application type.
If you do not receive an offer of enrollment during the current academic year, you may choose to keep your application on the wait list for the next grade level, if the next grade level is available at the academy, for the upcoming academic year. This action must be completed during Great Hearts’ official Rollover window. Applications that roll over to the next academic year still remain on the current year waitlist and stay eligible for an enrollment offer during the current year.
Applications for exit grades at academies cannot be rolled over and any applications for an entrance grade will need to be submitted during the Open Enrollment Period. For example, a student who is on the waitlist for Archway Veritas for 5th grade cannot rollover to Veritas Prep for 6th grade; the student will need to have a new application completed for 6th grade during the Open Enrollment Period.
At Great Hearts this is called Sibling Priority Status. While Sibling Priority Status does not guarantee an offer of enrollment, it does significantly improve the likelihood. Once one student is fully enrolled (i.e., when s/he has accepted an enrollment offer and submitted all required registration paperwork), any of the fully enrolled student’s siblings who are on a waitlist will receive Sibling Priority Status and move up the waitlist accordingly.
Yes. Each academy’s grade level waitlists are independent, so students receive a waitlist position for each academy to which they apply.
For a complete list of curricular and extracurricular offerings, please visit https://www.greatheartsamerica.org/great-hearts-life/co-curricular-programs/
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