Khotso Khabele, born and raised in the Lesotho township in South Africa, founded a school in Austin Texas starting with nine kids in a church basement. A decade of hard work later, he oversees a dual campus learning organization with over $5M in revenue, serving over 400 students from Cradle to College (age 18 months through highschool) Skillfully blending rigorous academic philosophies (the school employs the Montessori method in the lower grades and transitions to the prestigious International Baccalaureate in the upper grades) with a strong emphasis on the community values that he experienced growing up in Africa, Khotso and his team weave in arts, music, aikido, capoeria, mindfulness training, and a strong emphasis on social entrepreneurism into what they have termed, Emergent Education.
Drawing the attention of other educators and philanthropists nationwide, including Whole Foods’ founder John Mackey, Khotso is now committing to leveraging the learning from this lab school in Austin to more broadly serve as a scalable model for solving the educational challenges we face.