Wonder Learning Collective was established to create support families and learners in their educational journey. Our various services provide multiple ways to accomplish this goal. Our staff and volunteers have expertise in many areas.
Wonder Learning Collective was established to create support families and learners in their educational journey. Our various services provide multiple ways to accomplish this goal. Our staff and volunteers have expertise in many areas.
A Note from Our Founder
“Inside every human being is a hero waiting to emerge.”
Those words, by Holocaust hero and survivor Luba Tryszynska-Frederick, have guided me in my mission to help students discover their gifts and purpose – their ability to be someone’s hero.
As a young child I was placed in a project-based pull-out program with an extraordinary teacher. The afternoons I spent in that space were my favorite as I felt accepted, challenged, engaged, and free to pursue my passions. Some time between sixth grade and high school I lost my zeal for learning. I was very involved in my community and found great reward in those experiences, but the classroom was a place where I felt stifled and bored. When I entered college to become an educator, I was determined to provide a different type of experience for my students.
After college, I taught in DC as a 5th grade teacher and then as an enrichment specialist. The school transformed my view of education because it put the whole child first and strived to find a place within the school that each child felt they belonged. While there I helped direct the school’s musical, led the Student Council, organized the 5th grade Embassy Adoption Program and the Mini UN, served on the district’s experiential learning task force, and was featured over at National Geographic. After leaving the classroom for two years to finish my Master’s degree in education and write/adapt curriculum for the US Institute of Peace and Heartwork, I re-entered the public school system as a gifted intervention specialist in Colorado.
I realized during my teaching experiences that all educational environments are not equal. What makes a school outstanding for many students often makes it less than ideal for asynchronous students. I felt limited in my ability to foster growth and empowerment in my students and decided there must be a better way. After visiting with and learning from several visionary micro school founders, it became clear that micro schools are a better way. We decided to combine my passion for student-centered learning and my husband’s entrepreneurial expertise to create a micro school in our local community of Colorado Springs. God has blessed our school so much! We now serve 50 students in grades K-8 and will be expanding to include high school. I encourage you to follow us on Instagram here.
As our school has changed and developed, so has my role in the organization and the services it offers. We have rebranded our nonprofit to become Wonder Learning Collective, which reflects both its current stage and the growth we are aiming to achieve. While I am still involved with the micro school, I am now primarily focused on co-leading our hybrid program in Northern VA, Scholé Center for Innovative Education, and supporting the teachers at AMS.
At the heart of our organization is the word "collective," which emphasizes the importance of community and working together to empower learners. We seek to support families as they raise their world changers.
Our tagline is Growing Minds, Giving Hearts because we believe that a student-centered education coupled with empowered parenting can help students thrive and embrace their capacity to make positive change in their world. Children have the ability to see unique solutions to challenging problems and have the intensity and drive to do something about it – even at a young age. We help families combine their innate desire to be successful and industrious and their natural curiosity so that each child can strengthen the gifts that are uniquely theirs and are vital to our world.
-Sarah Lavezzo
hello@wonderlearningcollective.org