Episode 11: Kristin Bogner of Learning Lab

In this episode of The Property Lines, we sit down with Kristin Bogner, Community Director of Learning Lab.

Learning Lab's mission is to be the home base for pioneers creating alternative 
K-12 education options. Learning Lab was created for learners that needed learning experiences tailored to their individual needs. Learning Lab takes pride in their culture of openness, where differences are celebrated, and innovation is at the forefront. Learning Lab Wichita, gives you the power to transform education.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Good afternoon, and welcome to the next episode of the property lines. And I'm Bob Olibrahim, marketing director for Occidental Management. And today our special guest is Kristen Bogner. She's the community director for Learning Lab. And welcome.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

Thank you. I'm so glad to be on today. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

So tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do here.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Sure. Well, my title at Learning Lab is Community Director. And I've been here since almost the beginning. I was Lydia Hampton, who's our executive director's first hire. So I've been here almost three years since our spot in Union Station was completely empty. And I've gotten to oversee kind of the blueprint to fruition process, which was super fun. And I I do all of our marketing communications and local partnerships here in Wichita. So I get to do a lot of telling stories, which is kind of what you do too.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Yes, it is. That's exciting. Um so for those people out there that don't really know what Learning Lab does, give us your you know 10-second elevator speech as far as what you do.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Sure. So Learning Lab is a first of its kind, kindergarten through 12th grade education innovation hub. And what that means is we're helping new at kindergarten through 12th grade education models get their start because we believe that every kid deserves an education that works for them. And because every kid is different, we need lots of different models. Education can't look the same for everybody.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Right. Yeah. I know overseas, like it's not all book learning. Some it's like an oral tradition. Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Yeah. And, you know, our education system was kind of in designed in the industrial age for workers to get prepared for the world. And um, you know, kids are doing different stuff when they graduate high school than they were, you know, a hundred years ago. And so um, the other part of it is just what I said is that every kid is unique. And so the education that I needed might not be the same education that you needed. And so if we have more, better, and different options out there in all different types of school settings, then our kids are gonna be more successful.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

And probably um when a when you see a child has an aptitude for a certain thing or an interest, you can delve deeper into it.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Yes. And that's what we call personalized learning. So that's really the one thing that all of our education models here at Learning Lab have in common. And we do have seven different models that live kind of in our union station space. Um, but the thing that they all have in common is that they do personalized learning in some form. So even within their models, they're um tailoring that education for the specific needs of their kids.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Really neat. You know, I was as I was in the lobby up front, I was thinking uh I was curious as to how many students you have and how many instructors that you have.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

Sure. So we have seven education models and they all operate independently. And so the way that works is we do not dictate anything that they do as far as curriculum and instruction or discipline or ages or hours of operation. Um, what we're doing is supporting their ideas and helping them kind of reduce some of those barriers to starting a new school model. Um, but we do see about 120 kids every day up here. Um, and we certainly have a community. So all of our schools know each other. Um, when you're walking around the building, I mean, people always ask me what's the difference between what your building feels like and a traditional school. And one of the major differences I see is that there's just a sense of belonging and comfort, comfortability. I'm not sure if that's a word, um, with these kids. Um, even between across school models, they just feel comfortable, you know, playing together, learning together. Um, they know each other's names. Kids have a lot of choice in our building, and having ownership over education kind of makes kids happy. And so there's just a really nice culture that we've developed here.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

I know I one time I came over here, I think it was last year, and I met one of your students, and I was impressed at how young he was and how mature he was and how well spoken he was.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

Yeah, our kids, I think um, the word that we use is agency. You know, we try to empower kids to believe that there aren't a lot of limitations on what they can do. And our individual school models do that in different ways, but um, we have some pretty special kindergarten through. We really pretty much go through eighth grade right now, but 12th graders, you know, through 12th grade is welcome.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Very good. So what inspired the creation of the learning lab? Sure. How did how did this all start?

SPEAKER_02 5:20

Um well, we were started by a national nonprofit called Stand Together. And Stand Together focuses on um tackling some of society's most serious community issues. And so um one of their priority initiatives is education, and we're in the K through 12 education priority initiative. And the belief that they have is that um the people that are in the problem, so ground-up solutions um can have the best ideas to and the best ability to solve these societal issues. And so um they essentially proposed the idea of a co-working space for education um with the idea that they wanted to encourage the development of new better and different education models. And they handed, they hired Lydia Hampton, my boss, who's our executive director, and they handed her the vision and they gave her all the support and resources she needs. But I just give her a lot of credit for visioning out the idea, you know, the full, fully fleshing out the ideas. And she helped lead the architecture team to design the build-out here at Union Station and even oversaw construction. I mean, we had a lot of support in doing those things, but um, a lot of the ways that the space works, it's very flexible. So the walls move, all the furniture's on wheels. Um, those things are because Lydia did a lot of research. She talked to a lot of people in the community, educators and otherwise. And, you know, she did a great job um figuring out what type of a space could accommodate seven different models doing things completely differently. And she always compares the space to Harry Potter's um room of requirements, where you can walk in and it becomes what you need it to be. And that's really the idea is that our hope is that within three to four years, that our education models will have the support and resources they need here, and they'll kind of grow up and graduate out to their own space with the idea that then we would move in another model. So that's kind of that process. It's like an incubator. Yeah. Um so the idea is that the space is constantly changing depending on who needs to use it. We also have a membership model, and so we have homeschool families, we have education entrepreneurs that are kind of coming in and out. It's kind of like the YMCA of education. Um, and so they're using all of our amenities, they're using our makerspace, the podcast studio that we're in now, uh, video studio, computer lab. We have a science lab, a print lab. And so all of those amenities and materials are there for all of the people to share. Um, and also like the cost is a little bit lower than what you would find if you, especially if you tried to lease a downtown space. Yeah. Because we're a nonprofit, so we're able to help them out a little bit in that way.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Sure. Yeah, I remember when this space was unfinished. And I remember, you know, there was dirt on the ground. And you know, now I I came over here uh and and I look at it and it's so beautiful and well done. And um I see the kids thriving. I hear them playing outside at lunchtime. It's fun.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

Yeah, so so you guys are just right across the parking lot from us. Um, and we are so proud to be in Union Station. I mean, we love the history of the building, it's fun to share with the kids. The kids love the trains. It was very important when we were selecting a space that we were centrally located because we learned by surveying that parents only in Wichita only want to drive up to 15 minutes to their kids' school. And so this was has been the perfect place. Um, one thing about it being in Union Station, I mean, Union Station is beautiful in itself. But then um, we had Alloy Architecture, who's over there in the ice house too, um, as our architect partner. And one of the priorities was designing it to look like it was not a traditional school. I mean, we didn't want it to look like a school. Um, but part of the goal in being in such a beautiful facility is that when people come in and see education being done differently, they kind of have to like see it, touch it, feel it to believe it. And, you know, if you're in an old basement, it's nobody's gonna trust you with their kid for an experiment of a new school. But if you're in this beautiful facility, then you know, people walk in and they're immediately impressed. Um, and they can see that education doesn't have to look the same way it did when I went to school or prior to that. And so um it being downtown in the Union Station facility has just been um really key to what we're doing. And we've had people from I don't know how many states sign up. I know in one weekend, I think we had eight different states that were looking at doing some type of a learning lab type facility. And it's so nice to be able to invite guests to our facility and just feel really confident that we've done it right here.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Yeah, for sure. Well, it's bright, there's lots of light, um, it's new, it's comfortable, it's clean, it's all the things you would want as a parent.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Yes, for your child.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

Yes, and it has these tools that maybe aren't in every school. Um, there are there are great things happening in schools across the country, but we just tried to pick some specialty spaces that we thought would be well loved and well used by our school population. So Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

So what problems in traditional education were you trying to solve?

SPEAKER_02 11:17

That's a great question. You're probably gonna think I sound like a broken record, but um, you know, traditional education, um, probably everybody has a different definition of that. When I think of traditional education, I think about kids sitting in desks, maybe getting lectured to, taking exams, you know, so they're getting verbal lecture, then taking a test over and over and over again or reading a textbook. And we know that that works for maybe 15% of kids. And I'll say, like my daughters go to Cape and Mount Carmel here in town, and it's a they're in the cum lati program. And their cum lati program is what I would consider fairly traditional. Um, but it's been a wonderful fit for the way that they learn and just cannot say enough good things about what that education has done for my two girls who are junior and senior this year. But I do know that they're in the minority, that 15%, where that rigorous type of academic learning works. And so what about the other 85% of kids that maybe need to move around more or maybe um do things with their hands? You know, for the longest time in our country, we didn't push the trades, you know. When I I graduated in 2000 and I just remember college, college, college, college. And it's kind of swung the other way. And I want to give a lot of credit to school systems for realizing like the career and tech education area is really important to our country. But um that type of learning is important, but of course, that's only a certain audience, you know. Some kids need alternative seating, maybe they need a quiet space, but the idea is just that it can't look the same for everybody. So, you know, schools are trying, you know, schools are doing. I mean, I always want to give a shout out to Wichita Public Schools. And we do have a USD 259 school model inside of our building, which we're really proud of that partnership. It's called Creative Minds, and it's a micro school for kindergarten through sixth grade. I could talk about them all day. Olivia Sumner, the founding educator in that model, she's amazing. I love watching her work with kids, and they're expanding that model out. But all that to say this district is pivoting and doing some things like that, like their online school, which is really a successful model for them, like their future ready centers, which is helping kids get into the career and tech ed areas. Um but, you know, public school districts are working within a system and the system is standardized. And if you think about what the word standardized means, um, it's making it the same for everybody. And so it's hard to work within that system and serve every kid, and they're doing a great job. But our idea is that, you know, the more better and different options that exist out there, the better for all kids. And that's really the key is that every kid deserves an education that works for them, not just some of the kids.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Yeah. Very good. Well, my my son went to USD 259. He he went to well, actually went to Holy Cross at Lutheran School, and then he ended up going to East High in their international uh baccalate program.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

Oh, yeah, that's a great program. Yeah. So talk about so your sons probably brain like my kids where rigor is good for them, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And you know, so like you say, you know, uh not every student is the same. And sometimes they have a different path or an accelerated path or a more focused path. I also used to work for Vega, which is an international plumbing company. So I I worked a lot with the trades.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

Oh, that's great.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

And so I understand um, you know, the need for good plumbers and electricians and people who build things. Sure. Uh and and they get paid very well.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Yeah, they do. And that's I mean, I feel like for a long time that was kind of overlooked in the education system because we're trying to get kids to college, which is also a good goal.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

Um, but you know, some kids would make a lot more money and be a lot happier if they were doing a trade like that.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Well, they want to they they they enjoy keeping busy, working with their hands. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Yeah. This summer we're hosting a series of weeklong camps, and our last one, it's like the last full week in June, is a builders camp. And so it's talking about all different, there's some Legos involved for some of the ages, there's architecture blueprints for some of the older kids. So um definitely an area that we need to encourage those kids who are interested into that.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

That's where we get our engineers and our architects. That's right, you know, and our builders and all the things that we need. So um uh we I have a list of questions here, some of which we've kind of covered already. Uh what does a typical day look like for a student at learning?

SPEAKER_02 16:30

I laughed when I read that question because I just feel like every day here is so different, which is one of the cool things. It depends on what school model they go to. So just to explain a little bit, we have a private school here that operates on like a pretty traditional, it's like nine to four schedule. We have a public school model that I just mentioned, and they do the same, you know, five days a week. We have um a wrestling academy.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02 16:59

Um this is one of my favorite stories, but and if I mean now that I'm gonna get into you're gonna hear about all our models because I think they're all so great. But it's called Wichita Training Center guy. His name's Noel Torres, he's a national wrestling champion out of Newman. He went down and wrestled for the national Mexican wrestling team, came back up here, got married, started a wrestling club. So just a club sports team. Well, he had a homeschool group that was practicing in the morning, and they that group decided they wanted to start a homeschool academy where they would have some of the parents be like teachers, and then the kids would all learn. They learn, they I think they're learning independently, like, but the teacher is there to kind of facilitate. And that group decided to come here and start that academy. And their wrestlers wrestle in our storm shelter every morning for two hours, which is the cement building outside.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

And then they come in and they learn for a few hours and they're off on Friday. And so their day looks way different than like if you go to the Wichita Public Schools Creative Minds. You know, a kid at Creative Minds, they're project-based learning, and so they're always doing hands-on learning in every subject. It's usually related to the theme of their quarterly project, and then their projects are unbelievable, things that you would not think kids could do. Private school here is Khan Lab School Wichita. So Khan Academy is the largest free database of learning online. SalCon, who started Khan Academy, had one school in California. It is mastery-based self-paced learning. So kids can be in different grade levels in math and reading. They do a lot of their learning online, but they have teachers to help them with things that they're struggling with. And then they do do collaborative learning together. But it's a great model if you consider personalized learning. We have a lot of kids. Maybe they have a learning difference or something, and maybe they're behind in reading, but they're excelling in math. Um, that way they can still shine in that area that they're doing really well in, but they can then work to get ahead in what they're struggling with. We have a hybrid homeschool. It's called Sunflower Learning Community. Um, Darby Bro Vickers is the founder of that model. She only hosts session on Wednesdays. And so the other four days of the week, these kids are homeschooling, but they're coming, and she has a master's degree in the humanities area. So she's very good with religion and history and literature, and she's very creative. She's a lovely human being. So we love having her here. We have a homeschool group, so it's Wichita Independent Secular Educators. Um, they have the big back classroom, and so their families can come and go as they please, but they did not have a place to gather all together. And so this has been a huge, you know, great perk for them because um they have their designated space. They can host clubs, they can host social events. So those kids might come, you know, once or twice a week up to Learning Lab. Um, and then we have arts partners. So that's a nonprofit that started to serve Wichita Public Schools with arts integration. They partner with local professional artists and bring in education related to that. Their model has pivoted, so that's why they're here. Because you know, we are only trying to take on people doing something new, but their funding changed. And so they used to be exclusively in 259.

unknown 20:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

Now they're offering arts education and they do culinary arts, musical arts, theater arts, and visual arts. I mean, they do, if it's arts, they do it. And they offer, they're offering a lot of their stuff open to the public now. So you don't have to just go to Witchtop public schools. They're the best partners to have in the building because they can offer arts integration to our school models here. So it's like having a built-in art department almost.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

Yeah. And they're very talented, very cool people. I mean, I just can't say enough about the quality of people that we have attracted to the space. I think that people realize that education needs to change. We're kind of at like a pivotal moment in education, and you can see it happening if you look around. Um, Wichita is like, I always say we're like the micro school capital of the world because per capita we have a lot of micro schools. I think we have that we know of, we have over 30.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

No kidding.

SPEAKER_02 21:32

And so if you think about how many kids that is, and I always laugh when the like enrollment count story comes out in the paper every year, because some of the public districts are losing enrollment and people are like, oh, people just aren't having as many kids. And I'm sure some of that is true, but some of that is going to micro schools. And so, and I just and I've begged reporters to cover that story, not because it impacts me, but just because I think. It's really important to understand the landscape of education, and I think it's really important that parents understand that they now have more choices. You don't have to go to your neighborhood school. I definitely think you should look at it. It might be the perfect fit for your kid, and certainly the convenience of your family is important.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

Right.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

But there are lots of choices for families now.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Yeah, that's really neat. You know, one thing I was uh I talked was talking with somebody up front um about like foreign language. So um is there any foreign language happening?

SPEAKER_02 22:34

Yes. So each school can handle that individually. Um we have a program called Fun Fridays. And so it's kind of like college for a day for a kid and kind of goes with our mission because we want to help kids explore their talents and interests so they can kind of self-actualize or become the best versions of themselves. And so we're offering them almost like a menu of classes. So if you're in kindergarten every hour from nine to two, you're gonna have different choices of what you can learn about. And we have at least two Spanish teachers who are regularly on that menu for kids. Um, and it's been great. We are also one of our weeklong camps this summer is called Global Grooves. And so it's not necessarily foreign language, but definitely getting into how different cultures interact with the arts.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

Yeah, really neat. Well, I'm glad I asked that question because I didn't know all those things were happening.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Yeah, if you ever come up here on Friday, Bob, it's wild. There's lots of extra kids. And you know, to do fun Fridays, you don't have to belong to Learning Lab or be affiliated. So a lot of homeschool families.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

Really neat. Um, so how do you measure success for your students?

SPEAKER_02 23:53

Well, it's a good question. You know, our school models all measure success differently. So if you think about 259, they still have to do state testing. They are meeting all the standards required by the state of Kansas. If you look at Con Lab School, they get reports about each subject about exactly where their kids are at. But for us at Learning Lab, our idea of like how we're measuring success looks a little different. Um, a lot of it is anecdotal, which I we struggle with this, you know, the data piece, but it's like, is this kid happy? Does this kid feel safe at school? Which you would be surprised how many kids do not. And it's not necessarily physical safety. I'm talking about. Um, is this kid progressing? Is this kid making progress? Is this kid found something they love to do? Does this kid have self-confidence? And so um, if you would ask Learning Lab how we measure success, that would be those things. But we do, of course, encourage our individual learning models to have, you know, goals, learning goals is still important.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Yeah, of course. Well, I I just thought I would, you know, ask about that. It's important. Um, how do parents typically react when they first learn about Learning Lab?

SPEAKER_02 25:12

Oh, well, if they're here, um, so we've had, I think, 300 plus tours of the space. So that's just 300 individuals in the community that have reached out. And most of the time, I'm the person giving the tour, which is one of my favorite parts of my job. I I would say 99% of the time I get oohs and ahs based on just the physical part of the space. It's very pretty, right? Um, but that doesn't always mean that there's a perfect learning model here for their kiddo, you know, if that's what they're looking for. Um, but we also hear a lot that they had no idea this was here. And I know how much we've spent on marketing, but I think because we're a first of our kind, it's it's difficult to uh wrap people's head around. I mean, an analogy that I use a lot is it's like a mall, but all the stores are schools. Yeah. Okay. And we just share like the food court and the amenities, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Yeah, that makes sense. And we we've sort of touched on this, but I I'm gonna ask this because it maybe lead to a different answer a little bit. How does the design of your space support educational uh approaches?

SPEAKER_02 26:27

Sure. Well, aside from what we've already said, just the fact that we have flexible walls that our furniture moves, I think we really tried to provide materials that kids need to be creative. We really believe in creativity. And so in the makerspace, you'll see it's fully stocked with lots of art supplies, lots of tools that they can use to create. There's no extra charge for our resident schools or our members to use that stuff. We have a print lab. Um, our print lab, we have three 3D printers. We have a traditional copier printer, we have a poster, like large format printer. We have a computer.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Do you have computers?

SPEAKER_02 27:09

Yes, we have a computer lab, which is um the towers, you know, stationary computers. We have a video studio. Um, we we do source science materials, very base level. Everything we do is entry level here. And then if somebody has like a huge interest in woodworking, we're not gonna have power saws at Learning Lab. And so we have partners that we can refer kids out to. We want kids to get interested here, and then if they find something they love, go out into the community and use the resources we have in Wichita. Because Wichita, you know, we always talk about Wichita being a classroom. There's lots of people and things that people can learn from in Wichita. And that's another reason why it's great to be downtown. A lot of that stuff is walkable for our kiddos.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

Right. That's awesome. Um what elements of the environment make the biggest difference for students, do you think?

SPEAKER_02 28:04

You know, to be honest with you, it's probably nothing about the physical space or the materials and resources I just talked about. It's the community, it is the culture that every kid belongs here. It is um the student agency. So they have a lot of choice in what they're learning, how they're learning. Um, one of the big things I see people comment on is, you know, you'll see kids sitting on the floor, you'll see kids walking around in socks, you'll see kids, um, small kids going to the bathroom by themselves. We have a very secure space. But but um it's it's giving them that ownership um and inclusion and belongingness is a good word. So kids here typically feel comfortable to be themselves and grow.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

And they feel like they're at home. Yes, yeah. Um what challenges have you faced in the building something outside the traditional, you know, normal system? Is there any anything that's been challenging at all?

SPEAKER_02 29:16

Oh, sure. I mean, every everything has challenges. I mean, one challenge that I would tell you is we we do come up against a space constraint. I mean, I just don't know that we could have made this facility big enough to serve all of the people interested in starting a new education model. Um, we were worried before we opened that getting people from these different educational backgrounds together would be tension and conflict. You know, we have homeschool community, we have public school, we have private school. That's a very different points of view in one space. In fact, we don't we haven't found anywhere else in the country that houses all three of those things in the same roof. Um, what we have found, like really to our delight, is that when you get all those people together, at least here, uh, what they do is they get curious about one another, they learn from one another. Part of the building design was um like putting the bathroom and the kitchen at the far end of the space was intentional because we wanted these models to cross paths and have these intersection points where they would, you know, see each other. Um, we have an adult um educational leadership program. So we modeled it after things like the thread and leadership Wichita, where we wanted these education professionals to get some professional development that was like treat yourself, where they all learned like different viewpoints, where they kind of got outside of the box that they were living in. And we were again nervous to have a homeschool parent with a public school teacher in the room. It was the most beautiful. I mean, our first cohort, it was like the best group of open-minded, you know, really when you get right down to the heart of it, almost all educators get into education, some version of they care about kids. Right. If you really want the best for kids, you might have a different opinion about how to do that than your neighbor. But at your core, you're really the same. Yeah. And so it's how can we do what's best for every individual kid? And I think people get that.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

So what what do you feel has been the most rewarding thing uh that you've seen or so far?

SPEAKER_02 31:38

I mean, I would absolutely say the growth that we've seen in kids. Um, you know, there are this is we're ending our second full academic year. And most of our school models run on a traditional academic calendar. And there are kids that came in two years ago that were almost like a shell of themselves because like I think of one girl who was bullied pretty badly at multiple school environments before she got here. And now this girl pretty much runs the space. She has a lot of spunk, a lot of sass. And it's almost like she felt comfortable enough to kind of come back into herself.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

Good.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

Um, so stories like that, and then stories like um amazing things that have happened um because of kids, really because of adults empowering kids. And I'll tell one story, and I've probably told it every time anyone's ever asked me something about Learning Lab. But we had a little girl, Brindley, at Creative Minds. I think at the time she was six years old, and their unit was on like civic involvement of some sort. And she decided she wanted to build a tiny home for a homeless family.

SPEAKER_01 32:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

And, you know, probably lots of six-year-olds have had that as a passing thought. But Olivia Sumner, her teacher, said, Well, let's do it. And so Brindley decided she was going to raise the money for the home by having a cardboard carnival. So her whole class got behind her and they had a cardboard carnival up here and they raised$2,000. And so that was a really good start. But the media then picked it up, and a donor came forward and funded six tiny homes. And so six tiny homes are now sanctioned for six different families to move into, all because a six-year-old said, I want to help, and because her teacher said you can. And so it's those types of stories that really keep us going. It's just the fact that, you know, kids, we underestimate kids.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:52

Um, we're the kids are often told to be quiet, to sit down, to minimize their impact in their space. And our goal would be the opposite.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

For sure. Well, that's really special. That's neat. Thanks for sharing that story. Um, but how do you build and maintain a strong culture within Learning Lab?

SPEAKER_02 34:14

That's really important to me and my role because I think my title, community director, has that word community in it. Um I mean, one of the things is just really believing that everyone belongs here, who's here, that every perspective is valued. We really try to support and pour into our resident leaders of the models. So while our end result is to help kids, our goal is to support the education entrepreneur doing the new model, because if they succeed, that impacts way more kids than if we just picked a kid to invest in, right? And so I think um creating that welcoming culture for our resident leaders and then our members, too, who are homeschooled parents or business owners that are working in the education space. Um, we do have community-wide events. So I think that's been really important. Um, and just trying to think of like intentional, personal steps that make people feel welcome. It's kind of like personalized education, but for the grown-ups, it's more personalized attention.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Yeah. So what do you think uh the next five to ten years looks like?

SPEAKER_02 35:33

That's a really good question. That's probably my favorite question. Um, well, we so again, we believe at all kids, and that's not talking about just kids in Wichita or just kids in the United States. We think all kids deserve an education that works for them. And we know that some kids have that right now, but we think a larger number of kids are still looking or don't even know that they can look. So our goal is to expand our reach. Um, we are starting an education revolution, and we would like to see uh millions more, even billions more kids, probably not in the next five to 10 years, um, find those environments. Um, ways that we're going to help is um we hope that we will open a few additional learning labs in other cities. Um, the future is really unknown on like what that looks like, but we have a couple of cities coming up. So hopefully, you know, next time we're talking, maybe we'll be able to announce something.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:41

Um, but also um just telling these stories. Um, so like thank you for having me on. This is a great example. But the more that we can talk about the impact of the work, I think people like need to see it. So having this as a showcase, having people from other cities come here. Yeah. Um, our goal is just to get the most kids as we can in an education environment that works for them and to create the idea for parents that um they can shop for schools. Um, if you're happy in your school, like we love that for you.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

But and we're just pretty agnostic as to public, private, homeschool. We like them all.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:24

But but it has to be the right fit for the child. And so parents need to listen to their children, number one, but then also parents need to feel the ability to do that. And I'm telling you, there are plenty of options that are out there, and not all of them are cost prohibitive.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Right. Well, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing uh all of your stories about Learning Lab.

SPEAKER_02 37:55

Well, thank you so much for having us and being such a good partner. We love partnering with you guys to do events and things, and we love being downtown at Union Station.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

Well, we love having you. Thanks, Bob. Thank you.