My name is Jenna Hays, Founder of The School of Life.

I’m a wife and mother of 3. I’ve been married to my husband Bryan for 11 years and we currently reside on my family’s ranch in Southern Oregon.

We moved from Portland, OR in 2021. I grew up east of Ashland on my family’s ranch, the Box R Ranch, where we operated a Christian Camp & Retreat Center until 2015. Working with kids in a hands-on, outdoor setting has been core to my entire life’s work and is absolutely a passion of mine.

I attended public schools in Ashland and studied Politics & Communication at the University of Oregon and Southern Oregon University, with the eventual goal to teach.

In 2023, I started a microschool called Mountain Academy in the community where we live in order to give my own children (and any other families interested) the specific education that I want for them and that I had always wished I had as a child.

A little bit about my background:
In college, I was voted in as the Membership Chairman of the University of Oregon College Republicans and also became the Secretary of the statewide Oregon College Republicans group during my time at UO. I attended every Leadership training & conference that I could in college, from the National Leadership Conference at George Washington University in Washington D.C to the annual the West Coast Leadership conference in Santa Barbara, CA. I received my mastery in Leadership through the Leadership Institute’s program. I became certified in Mediation and Arbitration in Oregon in 2009. To put it simply, my passion is helping to solve problems.

I graduated with a National Award from the American Association of University Women as the Political Scientist of the year in 2009. While my background is full of politics, my far deeper passion is Worldview. Politics is simply the apparatus that’s downstream from culture, and culture is comprised of varying worldviews. I love to assess those differing worldviews and study their ideological implications.

I’ve written a book on Spiritual Formation called Identity & Calling, and another on Biblical Worldview.

I’m President of a non-profit based in Portland called The Pearl Projects whose mission is to connect women with discipleship-rich resources and opportunities. Our activities range from a strip club ministry, to retreats, to home-based spiritual formation resources.

My desire is to create education model alternatives for families that are safe for children, where their innocence is protected and where their sense of identity is not dependent on whatever the cultural or political trend is.

I see now how the Lord has used complex & difficult seasons in my life in order to shape me for what He had been aligning in the background the entire time.

What the Lord has done in The School of Life project is that He’s connected my passions: Spiritual Formation and Education. He’s also delivered a clear path forward that connects the desires of parents and the desires of many churches who see the need and who want to increase their role & effectiveness when it comes to the discipleship and education of the next generation.

This is truly the opportunity of a lifetime, to reimagine “missions,”to include responding to the cry of parents who’s children are not fairing well in public schools, and to recapture the opportunity to disciple an entire generation of young people, within the doors of the church, in the knowledge, the wisdom and the Truth of God’s Word, in Jesus Christ.

Thank you so much for taking the time to peruse the site. On behalf of my team and of the hundreds of people who are praying for us in this new endeavor, thank you and God Bless you!

— Jenna Hays