The Bug Lady's Journey to Building the Unimaginable

Glass cases filled with cockroaches. Birds that speak English. Tortoises and ferrets roaming free.

This is not your typical kindergarten classroom.

In fact, it’s a learning environment unlike almost anything you’ve seen — and it started with one woman’s vision.

For nearly two decades, Carrie Tiemeyer, better known as The Bug Lady, has been building something different: an early childcare center and kindergarten facility that brings science to life.

Today, The Bug Lady’s Science Academy serves dozens of children in Wichita, Kansas, blending structure with scientific magic in a way that’s both intentional and inspiring.

In this episode, Carrie shares how she turned an unconventional idea into a meticulously run early learning center. Her story shows what it really takes to build a new education model focused on personalized learning.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hi, I'm Lydia, and I'm Houston. Through our work at Learning Lab, which talk, we get a front-row seat to innovation in personalized kindergarten through 12th grade learning. On this podcast, we share stories of how educators and parents are helping kids discover their passions so you can do the same for a child you love.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Time to dive in.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Let's get personal.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Hello. Welcome to Let's Get Personal, Real Talk about Reimagining Education. This week, it's just me, Kristen, and recently I was lucky enough to sit down with a woman called The Bug Lady, Carrie T. Meyer, who owns the Bug Lady Science Academy, which is located in North Wichita, Kansas. She has created an amazing early childhood center and a kindergarten for children in our area. And there's just nothing like it. So I can't wait to share with our audiences more about the Bug Lady Science Academy. So I'm here with Carrie T. Meyer, the Bug Lady, and we are in her North Wichita facility inside the large classroom with all the critters. So I just want to start out with Carrie share how this facility came to be.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

Nothing with where I was at. There was no problems there. I just felt like education is not for everybody the way that it is presented one way. And I used the animals in my classroom to really make them a community of the learning. And so it really worked. But as a teacher in 2008, I didn't realize the economy was bad. And so when I quit to open up a center, nobody was looking for care. Everybody was kind of scrambling, trying to even keep their jobs. But I still plugged plugged on trying to open up the center. But I had 60 animals in my basement. And I started calling teacher friends, asking them if I could come to their classrooms and just talk about frogs or talk about turtles and bring my animals because I miss kids and I miss that interaction. And teacher friends would have me come, and of course they would post pictures. And then after about a year, my husband's just like, these animals are costing money. Like, where's the income coming from? Sorry. No, it's great. I love it. He's 65 years old, that double yellow Amazon bird. And so we kind of let him do what he wants just because you live this long, man. Like, um, you should be able to holler whenever you want. Um, anyway, after about a year, um I went to him and I said, my husband and I said, I think I want to be the bug lady, which I had had a kid many, many years before that had called me the bug lady. And when I was going to schools, that's what I was kind of called. And I remember him saying, Um, nobody's gonna pay you to talk about animals. And for a brief second, I thought he was right, and then I thought I'm gonna prove him wrong. And I started charging very little, and people I didn't know started just like telling other teachers, and then I really started kind of taking off, but I still was not charging very much. I would go to a school and do maybe six or eight programs for like$50 a day, uh, just because I didn't have the self-worth yet to think that this could be something. Um, and so after a while, my husband is like, the animals have got to get out of our house. It was like a pet store, and so I ended up renting a space in Valley Center. It was$380 a month, which looking back is not very much, but I struggled to pay for it because this was not a black and white business. My husband did not say, but kind of implied that our household money was not gonna go to this because this didn't make sense to him, and so um that was probably the best thing that ever happened to my business because it I had to rob Peter to pay Paul and to figure it out, and I had to put myself out there when I probably wouldn't have put myself out there just because I needed the funds coming in. Um, I finally had decided that I probably needed to move to Wichita, even though people were coming to Valley Center for science classes and I was still doing schools and I had kind of started doing birthday parties. Um, someone had asked me to do a birthday party and I kind of started doing that. So when I was going to move to Wichita, I had no money. Um, I contacted Dan Enru at Insight Realty, he's amazing. Um and I said, I think I need to move to Wichita, but I have no money. And he said, uh there is a tenant in one of the properties that has a dance studio. Maybe she'd be interested in subleasing it since she uses it in the evenings and you need it on the weekends. And so I went to talk to her. Um, it was in September of 2011. And I went to her and I said, Whatever contracts you have with Cox and Rent, and I will take over everything. And in February, when your lease is over, if it doesn't work, then I go this way, you go that way. And I was not sure how I was gonna pay the rent, and the rent was considerably more than what I was paying in Valley Center. Um, I had called group on at the time to beg them to feature me with some birthday parties. They wouldn't return my phone call. Dan Unru called me and said that he knew Carrie Ringers at the Wichita Eagle and that he would ask her if she could do a story on me. I remember I was at home and she called me at 4:30 on a Friday, and she said, I have five minutes. I've got to get to print by five. Tell me your story. And she kept saying, I only have five minutes. An hour later, we were still talking. And she said, I think this is a bigger story. And she said, I'm gonna do something more. I said, Okay. And so the next week, I didn't see it in the paper, and of course, I'm super, super excited. Um, and I called her and I said, I'm not seeing it in the paper. And she said, Well, Steve Jobs died, and he it's a little bit more important story, obviously. And so she ran that story and she said it's gonna come out next Saturday. And at the time I thought, Saturday, who reads the paper on Saturday? But that ends up being their biggest viewership is the weekends. So on this Saturday, it was in the paper. I was lecturing on animals in the classrooms and the benefits of animals in the classroom at Hutch Community College. And I stopped in at a quick shop to grab a drink before I headed to Hutchison, and the guy working the counter said, Are you the bug lady? And at the time I had done some stuff for PBS and KPTS, which that just kind of fell in my lap as well. I was doing a program in Valley Center, and a little boy went home, and at dinner time, his mom was in charge of programming at KPTS, and they did these uh donation pledge drives, and they had hired at the time the bubble man uh to do uh pledge drive, and he passed away. So she was at dinner saying, I don't know what I'm gonna do for this kid's pledge drive, who I'm gonna call. And in the middle of dinner, she said, How was your day? in the sense that this woman came to my school and name's a bug lady, and she has a ferret. I want a ferret for Christmas. I love her. And the next day she called me and she said, Would you be interested in doing a pledge drive? Now, at the time, I am thinking she wants me because I'm so super cool, right? She's desperate, she just needs someone breathing. But when I went, I'd never been on TV before, and it was just it was amazing. And then they came back and asked me if I would do some small 30-minute segments, 30-second segments in between what should be commercial breaks, but they do not do commercials during their kids' programming. And I agreed. Um, I did eight segments, 30-second segments in one take. Um, I talked really fast. Um, I can talk fast. Um, and it worked. And so I was kind of already doing that when I moved into this really expensive suite with 60 animals. Um Carrie Ringers ran the story. The guy at Quick Shop asked me if I was a bug lady. He said I was in the paper, and I thought, this is very interesting that he would read the business section of the paper. And he said, No, you made the front page. And so I picked up the paper. I remember thinking I was right. This is gonna work. And it did. And I was on the banner and opened it up, and I was on this side and this side of the paper. And it was amazing. I'm sorry. It's just been I've been carrying the cross for this business for so long.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Oh, I understand. Um, you've built something really great at this point. Um, but at that point, you'd been doing the business for how long?

SPEAKER_02 9:57

I started in 2008 and that was 2011.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

You'd had kind of a slow climb before that.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

It did because um how am I getting the word out? I had to ex I had to have evangelists in my community, which were the teachers, when they took pictures and said, Look what my class got to do. And then kids went home and la la la la la talking. And then the next teacher said, I saw this on such and such website or Facebook page. And so that's kind of the thing is, is at the time I had been trying to get a hold of Groupon. As I said, they were not returning my phone calls on that Monday morning. They called me because they saw me in the paper, and they said they wanted to feature me in Groupon. Those emails went out to 387,000 people, and so after two weeks of putting a package together for birthday parties. Now, with Groupon, you only get 40% of what you charge because they take, and then they also take a 10% for the credit card that the person pays. But I just wanted to get my name out there. So when they said they were gonna run it, they said make sure you have your staff ready for phone calls and emails. And I was like, Okay, sure. Staff of one, but I thought no one's really gonna probably see this, it's probably not gonna take off. So when it launched that morning, I was driving to Kingman to do an old school program all day. And as I was doing the programs, my phone kept buzzing and I finally just turned it off. I had no idea that it was part of this group on launch. And so at lunchtime, lunch break, I my tried to turn my phone on and it was dead. So I went out to my car to charge it up, and I remember it was freezing, and my phone charged, and it was like ding ding ding ding ding ding. And I looked and I had 117 voicemails and over 230 emails of people wanting birthday parties or to hire me for schools. And I will honestly say that even the discount revenue that I got from Groupon, it paid my rent for three years solid. And so what would happen is I would do one party on Friday, five on Saturday, four on Sunday. And what happened was the parties I limited to 50 people, adults and children. And with the 50 people, people are taking pictures. I'm getting animals, I'm doing a program, which was very interactive program. I would bring people out of the crowd, I'd have them shut their eyes, dip their hands in buckets of cockroaches, that kind of stuff, screaming and all that kind of stuff. Um, and they would take pictures and they would get on Facebook, and then on Monday morning I would be flooded with calls again because they were my evangelists. So that worked. And then I moved out east, and I was still in rented locations, and I was wanting to open up a center out east, but the property that I had didn't quite fit into what KDHE wanted for specifications for the building. So I continued to do birthday parties and don't going to schools. I would go to up to six schools a day, Monday through Friday, and then do 10 birthday parties a weekend. In 2015, that was in um 20 uh 13. In 2015, I finally was able to get everything squared away and I opened up the center. I still went to schools, not as much, and I still did birthday parties. Um and when I opened up the school, self-doubt, nobody's gonna come. And when I opened that it was gonna be starting, I was full, I think within four days.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Oh my gosh. Was that all just word of mouth?

SPEAKER_02 13:54

It is all word of mouth. Um which I can never say enough about, so um, that has definitely got me where I where I am today. Um and then in 2018, um I bought land and then built a building. My original building was 7,500 square feet, and then we recently, as of this last year, 2025, expanded um the building, and so it's about 10,000 square feet. We're on two and a half acres. The building, the parking lot, uh, and our playground and our playscapes is on one acre. So we still have um land that um we are considering expanding again.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

So And you have a wait list that is extremely long.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

I have a wait list. Um a really long wait list.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

So like if somebody wanted to get on your wait list, do they get on just like when they first figure out they're pregnant or when do you recommend it?

SPEAKER_02 15:04

I have people um that are on my wait list that are thinking about having kids. Um and don't have kids. I don't charge for my wait list. Um but I do have a wait list. I'm not a big sinner. I'm only I'm only licensed for 114. We don't we don't have that much because the animal studio is licensed as a classroom and we have expanded to kindergarten and we're not packing that class up. And so we're not at 114. Um, but in on our early learning side, we are completely full.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

So this room we're in is the kindergarten classroom.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

Uh the animal studio is the kindergarten classroom. So birds talking, birds randomly singing old McDonald How to Farm, um tortoises, big tortoises walking around, ferrets. We were doing work the other day, and a ferret climbed up on a kid's lap and jumped on the table and was jumping all over our activity. So we have a lot going on. We have a cat that lives here. Um, this is Bugsy. He's been with us about a year and a half. I did have someone tell me one time that it's not all about the animals in science. And I am officially here to tell you it is.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

What did they mean by that? Just that it's not the only important thing about your model or what?

SPEAKER_02 16:41

When I was building, I put a big emphasis on um the animal space and the animals and the science aspect, and um that individual thought it it needed to go a maybe a slightly different direction. And I don't think there's enough science um in education. And we are um unique early learning center where we are academic and we do have play. Um, there are play-based centers where it's child-led. If you have objectives, it's the most beautiful thing ever. It's a fine line between just letting kids play and um they're not gaining thing anything out of it. Um, we have a combination of both. So when my kids leave here, they know how to hold a pencil, they know their ABCs, they know sight words, they know that kind of stuff. We're not shoving it down their throats. We do have some kids that are not interested, that's fine. We will find other ways to to meet them where they're at. Um, and that's really what it is. Because we are private, we can do whatever we need to do for that child. Um, and that's and for that teacher, we give our teachers a lot of freedom to be able to determine what's best for their classroom. But um we do not um have the turnover um is really high in this industry. We do not have the turnover like some centers. I'm very thankful of that. Um we have fabulous staff.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

So But you must treat them well for that to be true.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

Um I would not be here without my staff, and I there is not a day that goes by that I do not think that their jobs are hard. I read a study once that teachers use more of their senses for longer periods of time than a brain surgeon. And so when teachers go home and they're mentally drained, they're physically drained, that is a real thing. We do not get enough credit in any any form of education field that you're in. Um to have a teacher that is comforting a child and being able to hear if someone's playing in the bathroom, uh, to be able to hear maybe kids are starting to maybe get in a disagreement and be able to have all of their senses senses working while still comforting this child without missing a beat. There's not a lot of people that can do that.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

That's so true. Teaching is the hardest job I will ever do, and I will maintain that opinion. I I know you have a heart for teaching, but what got you interested in animals?

SPEAKER_02 19:14

So when I was teaching, there were some woolly caterpillars on the playground, hundreds, and we caught them and we fed them lettuce. Oh my gosh, the amount of poop. Oh, they poop for days. But um I really saw the kids really jump into the caretaking and the and the education of them and wanting to learn about them, and I thought, man, this this is really something. And I had never been scared of animals. Um, I am scared of one animal, um, which you can ask me that question later, but um, definitely scared, but um, I'm not scared of animals, and just to see them having fun with it and learning, I learned right then and there that kids learn when they're having fun, kids learn when they're laughing. Kids learn. It doesn't have to be like this. And there was a lot of times we went off script, like there's a lot of times that this was in my lesson plans, but we had a detour. For example, we were doing an activity. Sorry, we were doing an activity, and one of my hissing cockroaches was having babies. They do have live birth. So a kid noticed that they were having babies, and we went over to the cage and we were we were watching them have babies, and all of a sudden she stopped laboring and she stopped breathing, and she actually died. Um, and when that happened, I turned to my kids thinking, I'm gonna have to talk about death, and I'm not sure, first of all, where the parents want to go with this, and and where should I go with this? And I paused, and the kids were looking at me, they were looking at the cockroach, and then one of the kids said, Let's cut it open. Because we dissected stuff in in my class, and we cut it open and we saved the rest of the babies. Now, that is something that you will never learn in a traditional environment. Um, when we did human body, I got real cow lungs, which are huge. I got cow eyeballs, cow brain, cow tongue, everything. We cut them open, we breathed into the esophagus, watched them. Um, we we cut things open.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

And this is when you had a traditional classroom.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

A traditional classroom. Which thankfully at the time, um I had a director slash principal that um welcomed them. They didn't they didn't limit it. And when I first started with the caterpillars, a parent had come to me and asked me if I wanted their pet tarantula that their kid was going to college or was old enough that it wasn't a thing that they wanted anymore. And I'll be honest with you, at first I was like, what? Like I don't I'm not sure about a tarantula. So I went home and I researched it. And I had decided when I had done the pros and cons that I would do it, not realizing the cons where they lived for about 50 years.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

50?

SPEAKER_02 22:33

Yeah. Females do, males do not. But I did it, and I saw that parents were coming other from other classrooms were coming to my classroom to see this tarantula. Kids were really enamored with this tarantula. And I had them help me with the care, not handling the tarantula, but does it need water? You know, let's go tell the bug lady, which at the time it was my last name. I didn't go by the bug lady then, but um, and one time a kid came to me and they said, um, Charlotte, which was my first tarantula, Charlotte is on top of her rock, which she didn't usually do. And I said, okay. And I kind of thought, well, she's not usually on top of a rock, but the kid noticed it. And then kids were coming. She's on top of a rock, she doesn't get on top of a rock, which led me to believe that they're really observant of this tarantula that doesn't really do very much. It's nocturnal, it sleeps all day. And they kept pounding me, checker, just checker. And when I went to the cage to open up the tank, the substrate on the bottom moved. What had been happening was the water ball bottle, I mean the water bowl had been tipping over every night and it was under the bark. So she was on top of the rock because she was wet. Her legs were in the water. And I don't know when that would have happened that I would have noticed that. Because I had been filling up the water and didn't notice it, but the kids did. And so I I realized right away that they were a learning tool. A learning tool. So we had birds, I had aquatic turtles, um, bunnies, lizards.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

I'm just marveling at your administrators that they let you have all these different critters. I just wonder if it would be harder for somebody to pull this off in a traditional school setting today.

SPEAKER_02 24:35

I won't name the districts, but I've had a couple, a few teachers from districts, big districts, that are not allowed to have animals in their classrooms and have asked me to take them or help them find good um homes for them, um, which is really sad because I feel like kids are under a different stress level than they're at, like say when I was a kid. I'm old, I'm 55. So if we were happy go lucky, riding our bikes all night, no video games kind of thing, there's a lot more stresses for children. And to have children not have an outlet or not have something other than just their teacher in a classroom for comfort is is really sad. I had a child that in my kindergarten classroom that had their grandfather pass away, and their grandfather was their best friend, and so it hit the child very hard. He passed away over the weekend, and on Monday, this child came to school. I did not expect this child to come to school. And when the mom dropped off the child, I said, I wasn't expecting you guys today. And she said that the rat that we had, um, Harry, he was a hairless rat.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

That is a hilarious name.

SPEAKER_02 26:04

Needed him, and that he had to come to school to be there for Harry. So he would come in the classroom and get Harry out of the cage and sit in um library area petting Harry, talking to Harry um about his grandpa. And that's that's comfort that even though I was able to give him some, I wasn't able to give him what the animal could give him. So the benefits of animals in a classroom, if it's done right, you can have animals in the classroom where they just become a fixture and they're not part of your community, and they're just a fixture. Um and that doesn't work. And it becomes a problem for the teacher because now it's their whole responsibility is on the teacher for care, everything. And it really wasn't the case for us.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

So the kids just really took part in it.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

They took part in as much as they could as far as for the tarantula. I never let them handle the tarantula.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Do tarantulas bite?

SPEAKER_02 27:09

They do have fangs and they can bite. Um Charlotte, um, I've had her since um 2006. She is never bit ever. They're very fragile. They feel very weird. When you put them in a kid's hand, kids will go like this, and if they fall, they'll hemorrhage. And she means a lot to me. Wow, you still have the same tarantula? Oh yes. Yes. She's in my will. A couple of the birds are in my will.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

So you started your interest or your love of animals just because you thought they were good for kids, or did you like them before that?

SPEAKER_02 27:49

I started my love of love of animals as a child. My dad is a science geek. He's an engineer. Um, and so all we watched was mutual of Oberhaul, animal shows, science shows. All I watched as a child was PBS. Ever. When people got HBO when it first came out, not us. We were watching nature shows, we were watching Nova, we were watching that kind of stuff. And even though I half paid attention, I paid attention. Um, I'm not sure I have the logical brain as my dad does, um, but we would have blue jays that would fall out of the nest, and I would uh take care of with the syringe, feeding them until they could fly away. I made the paper a couple times taking care of injured animals as a child. Um, so I never was scared of them because I had a parent that educated me on them and didn't show fear. I once was doing a birthday party for a group of children, and it was for children that were at a home daycare. And the home daycare provider came, and I usually set the children on the floor crisscross applesauce. I had chairs in the back for parents to sit behind. And no one ever really asked me why I did that, but there was a reason. Um, the daycare provider sat on the floor next to the kids, and every animal I got out, tarantula, cockroaches. Oh no, no, mm-mm, not gonna do that. When I would first get the animal out, the kids would be like this, and then they would watch her reactions and they would be like this. So after a couple times, I told the daycare provider, I said, hey, why don't you sit back there and we'll just and I didn't call her out, but they looked for her reaction and decided by her reaction it wasn't safe. No matter how much I said, I'm holding this tarantula, you're not gonna get to touch it, but I'm gonna put it in front of you and let you view it and look at it and explore looking at it. Um, they had decided, no, no, no way. And so that's why I always put adults in the back. Even when I did schools, I did kindergartners back because about third grade, their view of all these animals, they're scared of everything. And I don't know if it's television, video games, I don't know if they think they're smart enough to know now that maybe this is a dangerous animal, but I didn't want them to ruin it for the kids that wanted to explore. One time I went to a pet store and there was uh a guy checking me out and he said, Do you remember me? And I said, No, and he said, You went to my school when I was in elementary school, I'm a freshman now. And I said, Oh, I said, uh no, I don't remember you. And he said, Well, he named the school, and I said, Oh, I have I was there several times, and he said, You really don't remember me. He said, I was in fourth grade. I said, I'm sorry, I don't remember you. And he said, I asked a lot of questions, and I said, Well, a lot of kids ask a lot of questions, and he's just like, I can't believe you don't remember me. He said, I was sitting five rows back, four kids in. And I went, This guy's not gonna let this go, right? But I also went, kids don't remember what they ate for lunch. And he's telling me some of the stories I fun stories I told about animals in my program. He's naming animals' names. Um, he's remembering that I said this and did that, and he remembers where he was sitting in fourth grade. So I went home and I told my husband, I said, Oh my gosh, this kid. And my husband's like, so? And I said, I don't think you understand. Like, whatever happened in that program meant something to him, excuse me, that he was able to tell me about it as a freshman. So that right there was a testament to this works.

SPEAKER_01 31:35

That's amazing. Um, so you were doing the programs at schools, which that actually sounds kind of like a fun life to me, but it seems like you were doing a lot of programs, like your schedule was packed.

SPEAKER_02 31:50

I counted up two years how many kids I saw, and it averaged over the two years 25,000 kids a year.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

That's a lot of kids.

SPEAKER_02 32:03

It was almost 26, but it's a lot of kids. It's a lot of kids, but I got to where I couldn't go into public because of the PBS, and I was at birthday parties, and with kids, and I'm letting them handle the animals, or maybe they're just looking at the animals, and I'm I'm down on my knee looking them in the face and and telling them about the animals that they felt a different connection with me to where I I literally could not there was a point I could not go into the public.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

It's like you were the kids' favorite local celebrity.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

I did not feel good one time and I didn't put on makeup, I didn't fix my hair, and I went to Home Depot and I was talking to the guy about paint, and a woman came running around the corner with her two kids, and she said, You're the bug lady, you're the bug lady. And I look at her thinking, how I don't even look like the bug lady. I look like I'm about ready to die because I was so sick. And I said, How do you know that? And she said, We are on PBS. And I said, I know, but I don't have makeup on or anything. And she said, Oh, I don't know what you look like. And I said, What? And she said, When you come on, I always know you're getting ready to come on because there was this little bug thing they did before the video, and my kids would get so excited. I'm in the kitchen cleaning up breakfast dishes. I only heard you. She said, So I never saw you. And then she asked me to sign an autograph. That was the first autograph I ever signed, and took pictures with her kid looking like death warmed over. But um, I actually kind of get quite embarrassed about it because um you think this is gonna work, you think this education model is gonna work, but is it gonna work? And are you gonna be able to tell people everything they need to know to understand why it works? And you don't always get that opportunity by a website, by Facebook, by pictures, you just don't ever get to tell them, look at this. You should have been here yesterday and saw this, and you should have heard what this kid asked me about this, and just the questions that kids ask when they're allowed to explore deeper. Then this is what the curriculum says, this is what we have to do, this is what the lesson plan says, this is what it is. And it just has to go. You can teach math by doing so many other things. The hissing cockroaches when they have babies, it's live birth. I was very interested in how it worked. This is where you see I don't really have a life here, but one of them was laboring, and I marked numbers on the cockroaches that were in the cage. And what had happened was is when the first baby was born, cockroach number one went over and grabbed the baby and pulled the baby over to the food source and left the baby and then went back to the herd of cockroaches. And then the second cockroach went in there, and of course I labeled them as they went, and the second one would do that and it would come back over and wait. They waited their turns until all of the cockroaches had had a chance to grab a baby, which you know they have hundreds of babies, and take it to the food source, and then the first cockroach would go and they would start the process again. And they did that until all of the cockroaches were born. To say that a bug is just a bug, it is a community of conversations and and communication and a learning opportunity to, oh my gosh, can you believe this happens? You know, a cockroach can live two weeks without their head because their brain is right next to their stomach. Do they get credit for that?

unknown 36:14

No.

SPEAKER_02 36:15

Um, they have more nutrition than a happy meal, they don't taste as good. But they do. And I have explained that to kids that in there are countries where they don't have protein sources like we do, they have to eat bugs for protein. In those societies, they don't have diabetes, they don't, they're not overweight, they don't have heart conditions because it is a more healthier protein. And if you look at what it takes to raise cockroaches versus one cow, the resources and the process from start to finish, insects are a much more viable upper, you know, opportunity to get that protein source. We're not there yet.

SPEAKER_01 37:07

Your interest and knowledge is crazy, it's very impressive. Um, so I just keep thinking about your story. You were doing these birthday parties, but you still wanted a center.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

I did, but I had no money. I mean, even though I was doing all these birthday parties in these classroom programs, I did not charge what I probably was I didn't see the value in it quite yet. Um, I maybe had my husband in the back, nobody's gonna pay you for this, you know, kind of in the back of my brain. Um and so every month was like, which bill am I gonna pay? Uh I mean, I will be honest with you, I had it down to a science of how long you could go not paying your gas bill before they turned you off. Which is a hard thing to do when you live this life all day and then you go home to the comfort of your home where you are financially stable. But that's the way it was. I knew the energy guy, the gas guy, I knew their by name. They would come in and hold my snakes and things, and they'd say, Okay, I'm gonna come tomorrow and turn it off. And I said, I will I will find a way to pay you.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

So when did that change?

SPEAKER_02 38:16

It did not change until um I opened up just a little teeny tiny center within my rented space and then had a steadier income coming in. Um, I often tell people that um business owners that start with nothing, that know nothing, are way smarter than business graduates. Um, because you are the smartest you will ever be when you have to find money and you have to survival. Survive survival of the fittest. You have to survive. You're way smarter, and you just get it. You have to get it. So I'm I'm fortunate, I'm not gonna this woe is me. I'm fortunate because unlike other business owners, I was able to go home to someone providing my life for me. Um but always trying to preach that this was gonna work. Um so I started my center in 2015 and then through the small business administration, SBA, and going through a few banks that said this is never gonna work. It's never gonna work. A few big banks, it's never gonna work. Um, I finally went to another bank and um they said, yeah, we're gonna take a risk. And you know, I don't know if you believe in divine intervention, but those banks wouldn't have been the best banks for me. And so it led me to this. I mean, I've had in the past business partners to maybe get something off the ground because I didn't have the financial ability to do it. And for one reason or another, it just didn't work out. Um, not in a bad way, it just didn't work out. And I was heartbroken because laying in bed at night, this is gonna work. I would draw out the plans of my building on pieces of paper and take a ruler and pencil and erase it and dream of one day I'm gonna own this and I'm gonna do this. And then when it didn't work, heartbroken, tears. But there was a reason it wasn't supposed to work. So it took me 12 years of dreaming, which at the time you're thinking, I don't know how much longer I can go on because maybe this is not gonna happen. But also thinking, I've run out of options. What what's my next option? The thing is, is I had 12 years to erase those lines on the paper and decide that this would work better and that would work better for this, and and do it this way or that way, and have calm before the build, and in doing that, things are the way you're supposed to be. I'm glad I opened up a center in a rented space because it allowed me to problem solve things that I didn't think were problems. That who knows, when you're when you're dreaming about it, only good things happen in your dreams. You don't have all the oops, I didn't think about that. Oops, I didn't think about that. And I was able to fine-tune everything to where when um I went finally went to the architect, I was able to say, This is my plan, and this is why. This is why these are placed here, this is why this is here. I mean, for example, I mean, this is kind of a silly thing, but we have quartz countertops in all of our classrooms. I'm not trying to be fancy. I didn't want to pay for them. Probably not people to people necessary, but I watched a teacher in my experience cut out lamination with a X-acto knife on a laminate countertop. That was a middle note, not doing that. And just um, I have a lot of windows. Probably not the most cost-effective thing to do with heat and air condition and the cost of some of these windows, but I saw value in kids being able to see outside and to not feel like they're in a space like this, and so there's a reason for that.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

So I personally believe that God places dreams on people's hearts, but so many people never seek the fruition of that dream. Why do you think that you are one of the people that actually followed through and completed your dream?

SPEAKER_02 42:39

I never gave up because I thought that if I had to give up and go back into a traditional school setting, that I would wither away and die. There are some people in this world, no offense to my husband, he's this person. Um, I call them worker bees. If he wakes up in the morning and traffic's good, weather's good, his coffee doesn't spill on his drive to work, and he sleeps good, and he comes home, you know, he gets off early or whatever, he will lay in bed and say, This was a great day. I can't do that. I have to lay in bed and say, Did I did I touch somebody? Did did someone get something out of this experience? What can I do better tomorrow? And being in a traditional setting to where you're not teaching for your kids, you're teaching for the what works for the whole school district or or classroom or or facility and not doing what is needed in your classroom. It shame on you. Shame on you. And there are teachers that are amazing. They are withering away and dying. And they're not in it for the money. It's not there. It's not there. But if they have support and they are valued and they know that they are going to make the best decisions for the group that they have and they're free to do that, they will overlook the money for the value it gives their lives. And that's that's what needs to happen.

SPEAKER_01 44:21

So what year did you build this building?

SPEAKER_02 44:30

And then we opened June of 2020. Welcome, COVID.

SPEAKER_01 44:36

But you were still full.

SPEAKER_02 44:39

So I was licensed for 60 in my old center. What had happened before was I had one side of a suite and I was licensed for 35. When the tenant next door moved out, I opened up the wall and I took over that suite, and then I was licensed for 60. So coming over here, licensed for 114, I only had 60 kids. Um and I had kids that were gonna come once it was open, and I was gonna be fuller, but then COVID happened. So this is where we go back to there's divine intervention. COVID happened in March of 2020. At this point, I'm working through KDH and fire to try to get this open. And COVID happens, and I literally see my life flash before my eyes. I have made it this far, and this is gonna be wiped out. Um kids started staying home, and I ended up with only about 22 kids. This is where divine intervention, out of my 60 families, over three-fourths of them continued to pay. And they didn't come for a long time. For a long time, and they continued to pay. I didn't ask them, they weren't attending, um, but they continued to pay. So we were able to move in here with 22 kids and get rooms set up and get our protocols together um for for COVID and everything, and and then when it when it um was able to people were starting to come back, um we were we were ready. So that was a blessing too. I mean, putting together furniture and and getting classrooms all put together with 60 kids would have been fun time.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

Yeah. So for people who haven't been here, can you maybe kind of describe this kindergarten room um where you have all these animals? It's pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_02 46:35

So I used to have 300 animals and insects. Um the construction which was only supposed to take six months, um, took a year on the expansion. Um we built a greenhouse. There was a lot of a lot of things that just took a long time. And so during the animals being in a room with sheet sheetrock dust and workers everywhere, I kind of downsized a little bit. So I'm I'm down to about a hundred and we're slowly um getting more. Um, but see, when I went to schools, I needed seven types of different lizards because they're all different. Some climb walls, some don't, some have long tongues, some don't. Um, and I don't necessarily need that now because I'm I am actually not going to schools anymore. Um I get still get calls daily. Daily. Um, and I still get calls for birthday parties. And I have not my last birthday party I did was in January of 2019. And I still get calls for birthday parties. Um, but my space is not set up like it used to be for birthday parties, so it's just not set up like that anymore. But and I'm old, I'm tired.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Yeah, well, you've worked really hard to create a good product. Um, you have quite a late wait list like we discussed. Can you tell? Can you share what you think makes your center so special?

SPEAKER_02 47:55

Um, aside from the animals, um, we don't have the turnover that other places have, which um, with you kind of being an outsider on on this model here, um, not you know, being in it, um, that is a huge thing. Um and then, and I have to had teachers that I've had for a very, very long time, which makes it we uh treat this like a school. So we open up at seven, kids need to be here by nine, unless they have a doctor's appointment, they can come whenever they get done. Um, because our academic time is 9 to 11:30, and we don't need the interruptions. So, in doing it like that, um, our parents do treat it like a school. I in my last facility, I did not have a kitchen and I had a caterer. She's amazing. Um, everything is homemade. So if we have raviolis, none of the raviolis look alike because she's hand-done them. Um we have trout and salmon. We have the most unusual dishes ever. Um, very unusual, very healthy. We are as sugar-free as possible. Uh, we do not do cupcakes on birthday parties, uh, we do other healthy snacks. Um we have really healthy, healthy food. We accommodate any allergies, anything like that. Some centers do not. And so, in in with that, I've had people come and say, Well, we've heard a lot about you, but we've heard about your food. You have really good food here.

SPEAKER_01 49:28

I'm like, we do have good food here, but oh yeah, and we also have a ton of animals and critters.

SPEAKER_02 49:35

We do, we do. Well, there's sometimes people will say, Um, I'm I'm gonna take a tour and I'll just tell my husband about it. And I said, Oh, let's schedule the tour when both of you guys can come because it's kind of hard to explain. And they're like, What? It's just a just a school. And they will come with their husband and they'll say, Oh, yep, yep, it is hard to explain. We have over 2,000 plants. Um, like I said, we only have a hundred animals, but we're gaining more. And we haven't even opened up the greenhouse yet because our heaters are not up and running yet. But we haven't done that. So in the greenhouse, we're gonna do the greenhouse space, it's not very big. I've never built a greenhouse before or or had any experience with a greenhouse per se. And so um it was not the cheapest bill. So we only got it as big as we could get it. Um, but we're gonna do vertical gardening, gardening in there. Um, and so there'll be a water system that will go through the PVC pipes. What had happened was is I had decided to build this, and then on my acre next door, I was gonna build gardens and do play areas, um, an art area, music area, but the water restrictions, I on the east side it's hard to get a well. We don't have a well. I don't have a way to water this massive 45-bed planned garden. And so the vertical garden in the greenhouse will be what we're doing. So uh we will do that in the spring, and then we're moving our 22 chickens into a different area of our playscapes.

SPEAKER_01 51:09

Earlier you mentioned doing what's best for each child or at learning lab, we call that personalized learning. Would you share a little bit more about how you do that in your center?

SPEAKER_02 51:19

So, doing that, there is constant communication with parents. We have conferences. Um, if we see that um a child may need services, PTOT speech, we have a speech therapist that actually comes here. Um, of course, they the child would go through their um their office to do that, but it actually comes here, so parents are not having to take their kids to speech. But our um policy is is if we can try to fix it before kindergarten, let's get it done. And so, whatever extra supports we need in a classroom, there's some kids that need headphones, there's some kids that need wobbly seats, um, there's some kids that need a weighted vest, they need a pressure compression vest. Um, this is not anything that we do on our own. This is having really clear communication with parents saying, hey, we're seeing that different parts of the day, maybe this child is having some regulation issues. Can we try this? Um, if the parent says no, then we don't do it. Because our theory here is it takes a village. Um, it's a group effort. And if parents drag their feet and they're not working with us, then we're not the place for you. So uh we really uh try to work with parents on that. And also educating parents. A lot of parents, with this being maybe their first child, they have nothing to go off of, they have nothing. And the the theory of boys will be boys, or oh, it's just their age, that's why, you know, they're doing this or that. No, it's they maybe need some compression. They may be the classroom's too loud. Um we if we see kids that are having problems in the classrooms, we have team meetings with the teachers to where we will talk about what we can do in the classroom, what supports can we do, um, we will discuss with parents, we will um document, have more meetings. We've had some children where just rearranging the classroom fixed it. Um, we've had some children where just taking out red dye fixed it. So there's little things that we've had some kids where we have documented the times and realized that even though we have AM snack at nine o'clock and lunch at 11:30, at 10 o'clock they need some protein. And it's been a matter of pulling a kid out of the class and giving them some protein and then sending them back to class. Um, we've had a couple kiddos where at a certain time we need to pull them out of class and just have them run the hallways. There are some kiddos that need heavy work where they will come down to the animal studio and we have big um buckets, plastic buckets of food, and we'll have them push the buckets of food because they need that heavy work. It's just little things like that. But it's also about observing, knowing your kids, and having clear, open communication with parents that um I don't think some facilities centers realize how important zero to five is and how important letting parents know how simple changes can be the most effective thing for this kid to. I mean, I've had kids where, hey, I think your kid might have a tracking eye eye issue. Can you maybe go get that checked? Well, they see fine. That the eye doctor said it's fine. There's a specialist on your insurance, obviously. Just check it out. Oh yeah. Tracking, nobody knew. Um, we had a child that came to us from another school that he left off the first consonant of every word when he spoke. Now, how the previous school did not realize that there's probably fluid in his ears and he's not catching that first syllable. You know, and he got his I we said, hey, he might need to get his ears checked. And there was not pushback from the parent, but also there was confusion of like, why hasn't anybody said this to me before? They went and he had so much fluid in his ears, got tubes, easy fix. And within a couple weeks, talking perfectly normal.

SPEAKER_01 55:36

It's such a great story that just illustrates the importance of paying attention to each child's needs. You know, you and I have talked on the side about the possibility of you expanding the bug lady. Um, because with just one facility, you have a limit to how many children that you can take in your space. And we've talked about how it might be difficult because um your presence and your attention to details just such an important part of what makes your model work.

SPEAKER_02 56:05

Not being absent as an owner um has its benefits as far as staying on top of things and and being there for your teeth needing when your teachers need you, that kind of stuff. Also, I miss teaching, so I went back into teaching kindergarten, so I actually teach the kindergarten. But um, yeah, I I have to also think can I be two places at once? Can I do this? Um, do I want to do this? When am I retiring? Do I want to retire ever? I do feel like this keeps me young.

SPEAKER_01 56:42

Well, Carrie, I do think that at Learning Lab we would love to see you expand into the elementary school world because what you're doing here is so special, it's so unique, it works so well. I feel like there's nothing like it, maybe anywhere in the country. So I appreciate your time today and sharing your story with us, and um, we hope to keep an eye on the bug lady and see what's next. But when you think about, you know, the legacy that you're leaving with these kids that are coming through your center, what do you want that to be, or what do you think about it?

SPEAKER_02 58:43

Um I have attended a lot of high school graduations from former children that I've had, like in my kindergarten class. And to see the sciences that they've gone into. My first kindergarten class only had 16 kids in it. Um, but over half of them went into science degrees when they went into college. Um, I mean, chemistry and chemical engineering and and and doctors and and vets. It just amazes me. It amazes me. Um, and I'm not saying, oh, it's all because of me, but when you spark that learning and spark appreciation for them questioning everything and taking the time to try to answer as much as you can and not just dismissing them and then doing a lesson on what they're they're wanting to learn and shifting gears in the middle of the day to do this because this is what we're talking about now. That that changes a child, and and it changes the teacher. And so I don't know. I I hope people get something out of this. I don't always hear the feedback, and I do love animals, I don't always like taking care of the animals. It's a lot. I mean, my weekends are cleaning cages and draining aquarium tanks and filling with water and that kind of stuff. And then we have a USDA license, so we have standards we have to abide by to maintain that. And I have debated about getting more outside animals. Um with my USDA license, I can get animals that a typical person could not get in city limits. Like we have a rooster, you're not really supposed to have a rooster in the city limits, but we can. I have had people contact me about that. The thing is, is if you did, it probably would not have to, it would probably not be able to have such an animal emphasis as like we have, because I have, I mean, I didn't go to school for animals. Everything I know, I'll be honest with you, was going to Tales and Scales in Derby and listening to the owners there talk shop about animals with other animal owners and being able to call them and ask really silly questions, and them being taking their time to answer them and and and doing research on animals, um, and just observing them. And and animals that I get, it it's a long process as of are they gonna work out? Is it gonna work out with my time? What does their food look like? What does their care look like? And that's that's I'm not saying I'm one in a million, but I'm not really sure someone would want to maybe work this much. There is not a day that goes by that I am not extremely grateful and shocked, and shocked. Um, I have a thing in my bathroom, a big thing, and it says, um, I dreamed of this, and it finally happened. And I have something in my office that said um she believed she could and she did. Um but every day I'm shocked. I'm shocked that so many times it could have gone this direction. I could have had a business partner, and looking back, that would have never worked. Um because they weren't in education, and so sometimes you have to explain the whys on why you have to buy this or you have to do this. And for someone that doesn't understand that, yeah. Um, especially like my husband. Did you really need that? Yeah, I did. I did need that greenhouse. I did.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:56

Well, you are the definition of self. And I I think that's maybe what makes it so special. It's like your brand and the care the care that you take with with your center. It's like what you were talking about when you open the second building. How do you spread yourself across the case?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:22

I did have a parent ask me one time on a tour. They said, Is there anything like this in Kansas? And I stopped and I looked at her and I said, I don't think there's anything like this in the nation. Because there's nobody crazy about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:36

Well, and the fact of how much I mean, I do feel for you because I've been a burned out educator and I wasn't running a business. I was making a yearbook, which is kind of like running business, but I don't know how you're I'm not I'm not gonna say I'm burned out.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:53

I'm there's a lot of things that I want to do still for my center and for the kids that because I'm a business owner, I can't do. Um because unlike when I was in a classroom, 100% of my brain was in my classroom. Now I've got like 10% here, 10% I'm thinking about this, you know, 10% I'm thinking about this. And so um I I am learning how to still juggle stuff, um, and that can be draining as a business owner.