Founding
Schaeffer Academy was started in 1993 by a group of families in Rochester, Minnesota. They wanted a private school which was both Christian and classical in nature. In that first year, Schaeffer Academy offered grades K-6. We continued to add grades year by year until we graduated our first class of seniors in 2001. Since then, by God’s grace, we’ve graduated a class each year. Our graduates have gone on to glorify God and serve their neighbor at many universities and in many vocations.
Schaeffer Academy was named after Dr. Francis Schaeffer, the Christian minister and intellectual who founded the original L'Abri study center in Switzerland the 1950s. Because of his work there, Time Magazine called him the “Missionary to the intellectuals” in 1960. Toward the end of his life, Dr. Schaeffer moved to Rochester and opened a L’Abri branch here. He was committed to scriptural truth, passionate about understanding culture, compassionate towards people, and a lover of God. The founders of Schaeffer Academy envisioned a K-12 school that would share these commitments and loves. They made the connection between Dr. Schaeffer's ideas and their own desire to convey the permanent things - Truth, Beauty, and Goodness - to their children.
Our campus
Schaeffer Academy rented four different locations before building in northeast Rochester in 1999. Our 37-acre campus includes a competition gym with bleachers and a stage, locker rooms, music studio, commons area, physics and chemistry labs, and many classrooms. On the grounds we have soccer and baseball fields plus a playground for our younger children, all set in acres of open space and forest.