Tim Harty, The Business Times

Space has been leased for classrooms. A headmaster has been hired. Students are being sought. Money is being raised.

And come August, Grand Junction will have a Catholic high school: Chesterton Academy of St. Carlo Acutis.

Brian Sargent, currently a math teacher at Palisade High School, will be the high school’s headmaster, and he hopes to get 10 to 15 students for the first year. That sounds meager, but other Chesterton academies around the nation have grown enrollments to several hundred students within five to six years from such humble beginnings.

Sargent and Katie Jones, a member of the Chesterton Academy of St. Carlo Acutis Board of Directors, said that is one of the most appealing elements of Chesterton high schools. Existing schools mentor new schools, because they can share what they learned.

“They have the experience to help get a new school started, and that was kind of a huge selling point,” Sargent said. “This is our first rodeo; it’s not theirs.”

“When we came on,” Jones added, “I think they’d already started 58, maybe 60 (high schools in the United States). … And mind you, they don’t go out and seek people to start schools. People come to them to start the schools.”

Challenging curriculum

Another major draw to Chesterton is the classical curriculum all of its schools use, and Sargent characterized it as rigorous. For example, four years of math and four years of science are required. Two years of Latin are required, followed by either two more years of Latin or two years of Spanish.

“The Chesterton School Network has a wonderful curriculum that is sought after,” Jones said, adding Chesterton students as a result are well-prepared for college. “We know that the classical curriculum, how things were taught way back in the start of Western civilization, produces scholars, academics.”

The high school will have daily mass, too.

And Sargent and Jones said students don’t have to be Catholic.

Catholic school in Methodist church

One funny thing about Chesterton Academy of St. Carlo Acutis – Sargent and Jones even chuckled while addressing it – will be where the school is located. Its classrooms are inside the First United Methodist Church, 522 White Ave., in downtown Grand Junction.

“They have a really wonderful facility,” Jones said. “They have a whole upstairs of empty classrooms. They have a downstairs of empty classrooms. And when we found them, they were just like, ‘I think this is gonna be great. We’d like to help you.’ They just sort of invited us in.”

Of course, the hope is Chesterton Academy of St. Carlo Acutis will grow, and fundraising will eventually get the school its own building.

Finding future funding

Fundraising, Jones admitted, is not something the Chesterton Academy of St. Carlo Acutis board members are well-versed in, but they’re learning.

“None of us had ever done that,” she said. “We just have asked people, and the response has been wonderful, and support’s been great from the community. We did host a vision dinner and were able to get more donors, and that was kind of our big fundraiser. But we have to continue that.

“It’s kind of like every time you go to the next level, you gain more support. And God love those people that supported us when we had no place. You know, they just see our vision, right? 

“And then when we were able to get a facility to rent, and then able to get Brian (Sargent), I mean, it’s a project that builds on itself.”

Chance meeting nets headmaster

Getting Sargent to be the headmaster started with Sargent, an Immaculate Heart of Mary parishioner, attending mass at St. Joe’s Catholic Church. Jones was on hand that day to speak to the congregation about the new Catholic high school, and when she finished, she sat in front of Sargent. When mass ended, the two talked about the Catholic high school, and Sargent was intrigued.

He said matter-of-factly, “This valley needs a Catholic high school,” and he wanted to be involved with it. He taught at a Catholic high school when he was younger, but when he moved to Grand Junction, that was not an option for him.

“I teach at an amazing high school,” he said of Palisade, but at age 54 he feels called to this new challenge.

“I really feel that we need, our youth needs, something more than what the public schools can give, and this is a great opportunity,” he said.

Two years in the making

Jones said talks about forming a Catholic high school in Grand Junction started to get serious about two years ago, when the Pueblo Diocese approved of the Grand Junction group’s pursuit. Soon after, they applied and got approval from the Chesterton School Network.

Chesterton academies get to choose the saint they want in their school’s name, and the Grand Junction group chose Carlo Acutis, who died in 2006 at age 15 from leukemia and was canonized in April 2025.

“He’s the patron saint of Millennials,” Sargent said.

“And the internet,” Jones added. “I think we chose him because he’s a good role model for the youth. He lived his life in an exemplary way that shows that it can be done, and it’s not hard. He was very loved. He had a lot of friends. He was very committed to the poor. He wanted to share the miracles that he was seeing. He was cataloging Eucharistic miracles on the internet. He just lived a very good, virtuous life within the sacraments.”

Want To Learn More?

Interested in becoming a student? Interested in teaching? Interested in donating?

Find more information about Chesterton Academy of St. Carlos Acutis online at chestertonstcarlo.org, email info@chestertonblcarlo.org, call 970-549-0540, or check out its Instagram page.

More work to do

A few major hurdles, such as finding a facility and hiring a headmaster, have been cleared on the path to opening Chester Academy of St. Carlo Acutis in August.

Another major hurdle remains, as headmaster Brian Sargent said, “I think one of our bigger challenges is still going to be finding some part-time faculty for the first year. Down the road, hopefully we’ll have full-time, but for Year Number One, I think that’s going to be a challenge.”

Looking farther down the road, Sargent said, the high school would like to add a class each year, grow enrollment and eventually get its own building.