Our Story

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Where We Began

Jefferson Academy (JA) began as an idea in April 1993 by a group of parents wishing to become proactive in their children‘s education.

E.D. Hirsch‘s Core Knowledge Curriculum was chosen to be the guiding force to this back-to-basics, highly rigorous approach to learning. This grassroots organization began with word-of-mouth discussions. The group then distributed flyers within the community to recruit other parents who wished to participate in the founding of a Core Knowledge Charter School. In May 1994, JA was approved by the Jefferson County Board of Education, making it one of the first charter schools in Colorado.

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Our History

In 1994, JA began with two half-day kindergarten classes and one round of grades first through sixth. In the following years the school grew by one class per grade as the first kindergarten class moved up. The membership of JA parents voted to expand the elementary in order to accommodate the waitlist, address financial challenges, and support the secondary campus.

In 1996, a junior high was added, and then a senior high in 1998. The first graduation from JA High School was held on June 1, 2002. Since then, JA has grown in population and prestige. JA is consistently rated among the best kindergarten through twelfth-grade schools in the state of Colorado due to a dedicated Board of Directors, a talented and highly qualified administration and faculty, an invested family base, and motivated students.

In 2013, JA opened its new Secondary campus in Broomfield and further expanded its Elementary campus. JA also expanded to include a homeschool program called The Summit Academy (Summit) in Westminster. In 2018 The Summit Academy opened a south campus in Littleton, and then added an additional campus in Conifer in 2021. In 2023, The Summit Academy opened Summit Academy Sports program for elite athletes. The Summit Academy programs now serve over 1100 students and offer a full-time program for high school students that includes concurrent enrollment classes at Front Range Community College.

In 2019, the Secondary campus expanded its facilities to include a new auxiliary gym and fine arts wing, and JA partnered with Hope House to provide resources for their high school program. Hope House is metro-Denver’s only resource providing free self-sufficiency programs to parenting teen moms, including Residential, High School & GED, and College & Career Programs.

In 2024, JA added the Coal Creek Canyon K-8 campus in order to serve the mountain community that would have been affected by Jeffco school closures. JA Elementary also expanded by adding a Pre-K program for 4 year olds.

JA continues to look to the future and ways to better serve our community in order to “help students attain their highest academic and character potential.”