Charter high school expansion bringing top notch educators home
Local charter school, The Learning Center, is expanding to become a full kindergarten through twelfth grade school in the next four years. The upcoming 2021-22 school year will see the addition of ninth grade with tenth, eleventh, and twelfth being added each subsequent school year.
The school has recently added the impressive team of Steve and Debby Kurti to serve as educators and innovators for students both on campus and within our community as well as provide professional development and support to the school as a whole.
Steve grew up in Franklin, NC. He has a PhD in physics, is the owner of several federal patents, and loves to help teens and young adults discover their curiosity, develop skills, and find the value in learning new things.
Debby pursued graduate work in educational technology leadership at Pepperdine University. For almost 25 years, she has taught everything from kindergarten to graduate school, as well as facilitated hundreds of professional development experiences for teachers. Debby has developed powerful learning strategies backed up by the best research and educational theory.
In 2013, Steve and Debby started a small education company dedicated to "developing REAL Innovators on Purpose". Every year since then, they have run an Innovation Tech Camp in Murphy at The Learning Center (except during the 2020/2021 COVID season). They created summer tech camp programs, teen mentoring programs, and home school creative tech and science classes during the fall/spring semesters. Their business has kept them mostly in their small town in southern California, but every summer they have taken their tech camps on the road across America (western NC, TN, GA, FL, Washington DC, WI, northern CA, and WA).
Steve is excited to see how applying new educational and technology ideas can prepare the school’s high school students for solid careers both pre- and post-college. He will be working closely with teachers to create tech laboratories, practical tech experiences, and connections to local and regional businesses for students to explore.
Debby will bring a strong focus on excellence in teaching and learning. She will work closely with the already naturally-gifted TLC teachers to do "on purpose" what they have already been doing intuitively. Debby will bring her passion to help every classroom teacher become a catalyst for creativity and innovation.
To learn more about The Learning Center Charter School, visit www.naturallygrownkids.org, or call 835-7240.
2021 DIAMOND SPONSORS
Debby and Steve Kurti of The Learning Center
