Options Program History Snapshot

In the late 1990’s principal, Dr. Thomas Synnott was observant of homeschool families attending a few classes at Hinkley HS. He was concerned that these families did not have access to the curriculum even though they were taxpayers, especially with these pioneer home school families. Homeschooling was a new concept to him but he was open to it after observing the Sikkema and Denhoed families in action.

In the year 1999, these families approached Tom with the idea of separate APS classes for homeschoolers off-site from the high school and thus the Hinkley Optional Program of Education was born with the approval of the APS School board. Later the name was changed to HOPE: Homeschool Options Program of Education. That first year the classes were in a home with about 20 students.

The following year there was so much interest in the program that it moved to New Life Church with about 100 kids. Now with a building to use, a variety of classes like PE, Drama, and Science could be added. It was purported to be a great mix of supplemental classes just for homeschoolers in all grades.

In 2002 the program moved to Trinity Baptist Church with about 150 students and also opened a site in Arvada, although Arvada was only one of our APS sites for one year as Jefferson County remade the program their own. By this time Dr. Synnott retired from his responsibilities as principal of Hinkley HS to focus simply on the program and not work as many long hours as principal.

In 2003, many changes were made to the program that consisted of stricter guidelines for curriculum purchases, Colorado Department of Education's inclusion of the program guidelines, and the mandate for Colorado licensed teachers. It was also the year of great growth- besides a remaining site at Trinity (called Aurora), the site at New Life Church was reopened, Fellowship Church and the Denver sites were also added. In the subsequent years, additional sites included Brighton, Broomfield, Boulder, Estes Park, Fort Collins, Greeley, Loveland, Longmont, and Parker. Joe Burton and Sue Clark were hired as principals (also retirees) to cover this ever-growing number of students and sites.

With another homeschool program called HOPE in the metro area that year, that did not have a solid reputation, Dr. Synnott simply changed the name to “Options”. Thus was born the program as we know it today. Dr. Synnott was known for his innovative ways of approaching education for many years, and this program was no different. In 2009, Tom received the Principal’s Superintendent Award for his leadership and was recognized as an outstanding principal.

By 2010 there were a total of 16 sites and approximately 1900 students. The Boulder parents mentioned this great program to their school district, and the Colorado Department of Education then became involved to allow the home districts to take over the program for themselves if they chose to do so. That following year we lost all the sites except Aurora, New Life, Denver, Brighton, Greeley, and Broomfield, with Broomfield leaving the following year.

Dr. Synnott (at the age of 73) suddenly died of cancer in 2014. Joe Burton took over the duties as lead principal until he retired in 2019 also as the age of 73. Mike Nachazel was also a part-time principal for the program for about 4 years until his death in 2018. Sue Clark retired in 2019 after 16 years with the program. Larry Thigpen took the helm as principal at the beginning of the 19-20 school year.

Today (circa 2020) in our 5 remaining sites we average around 1000 students each year. Dr. Tom would be proud to know that his legacy is now in so many school districts along the Front Range as far south as Colorado Springs and as far North as Greeley, and has expanded to several different school districts in the Denver Metro area. This program was the pioneer of its kind and has become the model for a unique partnership between homeschoolers, parents, and public schools in Colorado.