About

Mountain Academy is a ministry arm of Mountain View Christian Church. It was founded by Jenna Hays in partnership with the church leadership in 2023. Read more about our American Classical Christian Leadership Education here.


About the Founder
My name is Jenna. My husband, Bryan, and myself have three children that attend Mountain Academy.

The motivation for starting Mountain Academy was to offer my own children and any others interested, the sort of education program that myself and many others had always wanted to receive as students in Ashland, but was never available to families at the time.

In Oregon, the bar is low in the realm of public education. In recent years, the parents, who are the real stakeholders when it comes to the education of their children, have become more and more willing to sacrifice whatever its costs them (financially, socially, politically) in order to have or to create something better for their children.

Like many of the loyal and courageous parents who I’m in relationship with, there is nothing I wouldn’t do to get my children the best, most compelling education possible.

When the options nearby weren’t great, a group of us decided to create our own, completely customized program in order to offer our children exactly what we wanted them to have. It’s parent-led and as a result, the motivation and the passion is pure.

It’s been the most amazing journey, with the most amazing, dedicated people.

While creating this private school was never what most of us parents had planned for ourselves, and while doing so has come as a sacrifice and with tremendous persecution (but only from those who don’t have school-aged children), the total process has been an honor and I wouldn’t change any part of the journey for anything.

None of it is about us adults anyway. It’s about the kids and all you’d have to do is ask one of the scholars at Mountain Academy what they think about their school, and you’ll know why it is worth whatever the cost has been.

“Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.” – Dr. John Trainer


My Background
After receiving a scholarship from Ronald Reagan’s Foundation, I attended a robust Leadership program at George Washington University in Washington DC in my early twenties that utterly changed the trajectory of my life.

I began to realize that true, effective Leadership was character-driven, and that it was going to be one of the most pressing needs of my generation and of our cultural moment. That passion informed the direction of my life & training for the next 10+ years.

I’m Founder and President of The Pearl Projects, a Portland-based discipleship ministry. A few years back, I founded The School of Life which exists to encourage churches around the nation to found private, faith-based micro-schools as part of their Missions and Discipleship ministries.

I’m a published author and co-host of a global-reaching podcast called The School of Life where I co-teaches Comparative Worldview. It’s been an honor to be a guest speaker/teacher on the topics of Spiritual Formation & the intersection of Faith & Culture at various churches in Oregon, including regularly teaching at Mt. View Christian Church.

I graduated from Southern Oregon University in 2009 with a BA in Political Science and a minor in Communication and completed my mastery in Leadership from The Leadership Institute out of Arlington, VA.

I received my certificate in Oregon for Mediation and Arbitration in 2009, and won the National Award from the American Association of University Women for Political Science Woman of the Year. I’m in the final process of completing my MA in Education but by far, my best & favorite accomplishment is my family who bring unprecedented joy and meaning to my life, and for whom I am forever devoted to.