Great Work — Utah

Utah's open-curriculum online charter — formerly Open High School of Utah — still building courses from OER at scale for grades 7–12.

Mountain Heights Academy

resource active confidence: Medium status: Draft updated 2026-08-11

Type
resource
Status
Draft
Confidence
Medium
Tier
C
Builder-tier
A
Founder-tier
n/a
Activity-signal
2026-08-21 · https://mountainheightsacademy.org/enrollment/enrollment-options/full-time
Activity-checked
2026-08-14
Focus
online charter school, open educational resources, Utah grades 7-12, digital learning
Identifiers
ein=26-3417162
Primary Location
West Jordan, UT
Utah Location
West Jordan, UT
Region
West Jordan
Map Location
9067 S 1300 W Suite 204, West Jordan, UT 84088
Coordinates
40.5898, -111.9289
Location Precision
exact
Location Source
https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/schoolsearch/school_detail.asp?Search=1&ID=490013801285
Domain
culture-place
Website
https://mountainheightsacademy.org
Updated
2026-08-11
Relates
cites Source: Mountain Heights Academy — About Page · https://mountainheightsacademy.org/about · cites Source: NCES — Mountain Heights Academy Record · https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/schoolsearch/school_detail.asp?Search=1&ID=490013801285

Summary

Mountain Heights Academy is a tuition-free online Utah charter school serving grades 7–12 (NCES record). It expands statewide schooling choice at real scale, but other online schools can provide a close substitute.

Impact

The lead's first-in-the-nation claim — first U.S. public school to build entirely from openly licensed materials and release courses under an open license — is partially supported but not closed:

  • Supported: A 2010 Creative Commons post reports OHSU released ten semesters under CC BY, quotes director DeLaina Tonks saying they are "among the first, if not the first, secondary school" to create and share OER curriculum worldwide (CC post).
  • Supported today: Mountain Heights says it still builds curriculum from existing open-source content plus teacher-authored materials aligned to standards (about page).
  • Not supported on current school page: The 2026 about capture does not claim first-in-the-nation status or name the 2010 release.
  • Not pulled here: Utah State Board of Education charter authorization documents that would tie the legal charter to an OER-only mandate.

Bet: that a charter school can treat openly licensed curriculum as infrastructure — compounding courseware the way software repos compound code — if teacher labor keeps standards alignment current.

Scale is real in Utah terms: 864 students, 74 FTE teachers, ratio 11.66 (NCES) — a substantial online charter, not a pilot.

Who It's For

Utah students in grades 7–12 seeking a tuition-free online charter with flexible pacing, 1:1 teacher access, and concurrent/college-credit pathways (about page).

How To Use It

Enrollment and program options (full-time, part-time, summer) are on https://mountainheightsacademy.org/. Office: (801) 721-6329; address 9067 S 1300 W Suite 204, West Jordan, UT 84088 (NCES).

Open Questions

  • First-in-the-nation status is unattributed beyond Tonks's 2010 quoted speech — no USBE or third-party audit confirming no predecessor school.
  • Rename timeline (Open High School of Utah → Mountain Heights Academy) not sourced on captured pages.
  • Utah charter authorization record and performance reports (USBE / Utah School Report Card) not captured in this shard.
  • Open Education Resources nav link on the site did not resolve to a dedicated captured page (404 on /open-education-resources probe).

Evidence

See Also