Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kyle Gamba. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Kyle , appreciate you joining us today. So, let’s start with a hypothetical – what would you change about the educational system?
As a K-12 principal for the last 14 years, I would visit classroom after classroom and have kids tell me just how bored they were. I’d enthusiastically pull up a chair, tell them they were wrong and observe a teacher working incredibly hard to get through their curriculum. After about three minutes, I’d stand up, pat a kid on the back while whispering to them to hang in there and then using the power I had as the principal, I’d leave. I, too, was bored and like learning in our daily lives, I’d go looking for something that seemed more interesting.
When COVID hit and I had to pop in and out of virtual classrooms, I knew I had to do something. More than anything, it was a culmination of everything I actually believed about education. Relationships are critical. Learning experiences need to be authentic. Helping kids learn about themselves as learners is more important than actual academic outcomes. And, duh, no one wants to sit at a desk all day.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I taught 4th and 5th grade for seven years, mostly to newly arrived Spanish-speakers. I was also super fortunate to teach in Bogota, Colombia for a year as a Fulbright Grantee and I can guarantee that I learned more in that year than any of my students.
Somehow, a year after leaving the classroom, I found myself as the principal of the third lowest performing, fifth poorest school in Denver, again, with very little formal principal experience. Five years later, we had passed 75 other schools in the metro area in terms of school performance but the secret had more to do with hiring great people that truly connected with kids and giving them the freedom to focus on the humans in front of them, not the students sitting at desks. We said yes to every community partner that wanted to come into our school and we made it about the whole child and whole family, long before it was cool.
I then accepted a position at an international school in Monterrey, Mexico. My wife and three kids moved south for an incredible learning experience. Not so much because our kids were learning a lot in their classrooms, but more so because they were learning so much about themselves and a new culture.
Three years later we returned to Denver and I accepted an interim position at 6th-12th school. This was the nail in the coffin. Middle school students were struggling in so many faucets even though I saw adults working so hard. It was a terrible product and we just kept trying different ways to make it tolerable. Then COVID hit. The opportunity to do things differently was here. We’d never go back to “normal” school, or so we thought.
Fortunately I had amazing friends at the Denver Zoo. I asked them if I found some willing families, could we just try coming to the zoo for school, and not just for a one-day field trip, but more for like six weeks. They were amazing and accommodating and made it happen. Four years later, the students at La Luz get to spend six weeks at the Denver Zoo, in their own classroom, working and learning from a plethora of experts at the zoo. They do the same with other fantastic community partners around Denver and literally have a school that is “like a field trip every day”.
Additionally, we knew that with all of the mental health challenges kids are facing, we needed to get back to nature. Our students will spend more than 25% of their entire school year “playing” outside. It’s like summer camp without having to wait for the summer!
With over 15 other amazing community partnerships built over the past three years, La Luz continues to pilot and learn what middle school could look like if we would just get over the notion that learning happens in school.
Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?
For three years, I have had to cobble together enough funding to make sure that our two full-time teachers, we call them “guides”, get paid. If there is enough for me to get paid, which isn’t often, even better. I have tried to be very transparent with staff that if we don’t get funding, my number one job, I can’t pay them. Three years in, I’m proud to say that I have never missed a payroll for my staff but it has been really tight and for some employees, that just doesn’t work. In fact, in the middle of our first year, I had staff that just didn’t understand our funding. We had been promised funding from a local foundation and were just waiting (and waiting and waiting) for the funds to hit our bank account but in attempting to be transparent and honest about funding, I quickly became the bad guy. It was clear that staff wouldn’t be here next year and unlike other professions, that means even though you let someone go, you get to continue working with them for three more months. That is three months where they are with kids and families “poisoning the well”. La Luz lost all its students for the following year and was on the verge of shutting down. It took a lot to rise up from that and try again. It was only because I believed in the idea so much that I was willing to start over. La Luz 2.0 came alive with a new location, a new staff, and some new funding- just in the nick of time.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
For me, La Luz is a belief that our education system, and middle school in particular, can be so much better than it currently is. We exist to prove that there is another way to educate kids that doesn’t involve sitting at a desk all day.
And to be very clear, I need and want public education to work. I’m not a believer in blowing up the system. La Luz exists as a prototype or bright light of what an authentic education could be if we were just willing to let go of our old notions of school.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.LaLuzEducation.org
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/laluzeducation?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laluzeducation?mibextid=ZbWKwL
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-gamba-ed-d-695680206/