Pikes Peak Academy Information

We value individualized instruction, project-based learning, initiative, mastery and practical life skills. We also include a spiritual formation component that seeks genuine heart change and believe this type of change best takes place in highly relational community that is rooted in love. Indeed, we aim to be this type of school as we work diligently to create a family atmosphere that regularly invites its students to deeper levels of emotional healing and relational connection. Pikes Peak Academy is a private alternative high school that provides a quality education within a Christ-centered environment. Our desire is to see all of our students grow academically, emotionally and spiritually. Pikes Peak Academy (PPA) began in 1993 when Mark Becker, then a teacher at a local Colorado Springs public high school, was contacted by Tom Tillapaugh from the Denver Street School (DSS). Tom founded the DSS in 1985, as he had a vision for creating a Christian inner-city high school designed to meet the needs of students who had not succeeded in traditional school settings and were considered at risk of not graduating. Initially, Mark began the school with 8 students and 2 volunteers in Widefield. In only a few short months, however, the school moved to a more centrally located Colorado Springs neighborhood and has operated there since 1993. For the first 8 years of its existence, PPA was under the leadership and organizational structure of the DSS. In 2001, Pikes Peak Academy became its own legal entity and is now fully operational as a 501(c) 3 non-profit ministry. Pikes Peak Academy has always and continues to admit students of any race, spiritual belief, or economic background to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to its students and does not discriminate in the administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school administered programs.