Meet The Team

Learning Coach

Hey Families!

My name is Matt Lagus, and I am thrilled to be The Gathering Learning Coach! I believe every person has a unique story, and I’m passionate about building deep relationships and discovering how people are designed. At the Gathering, I’m excited to help students learn, grow, and flourish, ultimately taking practical steps toward becoming who they were created to be.

I love to learn new things, as is evident across many areas of my life. I studied at Luther College and earned my B.A. in Biology and Spanish, with a minor in Math. Professionally, I have worked in a number of roles: An academic advisor at a small university, a biology researcher studying the effects of pesticides on native pollinators, and a long-term substitute teacher in a Spanish Immersion school. In my free time, I enjoy a wide variety of activities—reading books, playing pickleball, rapping Hamilton, running long distances, looking at bugs, hiking up mountains, and practicing the violin.

At the Gathering, I look forward to helping students cultivate their own love for learning. As Learning Coach, I will encourage students to wrestle with big questions, imagine creative solutions to real-world problems, know themselves, and pursue what they’re passionate about. Ultimately, my goal is to create a community where students are empowered to be the best version of themselves they can be.

Founders

The Gathering started well over four years ago, with a restlessness that stirred our souls every time we dropped off our children at school. We could not explain this restlessness nor understand why we had it. But every day - without fail - that “something is not right” feeling crept in. And yet, rather than digging in to figure out what was behind it, we kept going. After all, we both had jobs and careers to attend to.

Fast forward to the beginning of the 2019-2020 academic year when we announced to our children that it would be the last year they would attend the only school they knew. That one decision began a transformation in our hearts and home like no other.

As we prayed earnestly about what school to attend, God started dropping books and resources into our lives around education. It was while reading Courage to Grow by Laura Sandefer that our eyes were opened to the injustices of an educational system that is outdated and antiquated. We realized that the frustrations and restlessness we experienced had to do with the school system's design.

But, it was not until COVID shut down the schools that we began to open our hearts to home education. It was during this once-in-a-lifetime window that we saw what was being taught in school, how it was being taught, and how our children responded. Never before did we have the opportunity to see how our children learned best and what made them thrive. It was then that we started dreaming about how we could do education differently.

The Gathering Learning Studio is the product of God dreaming through us. We see now how God has been preparing us “for such a time as this.” Angie has been an educator all her life, teaching and advising in a collegiate setting while also working with colleagues to foster better engagement in the classroom. Andrew worked as an executive in a corporate environment for over 20 years and has helped numerous organizations solve challenges around risk management and data governance while also helping businesses transform their operations.

Angie and Andrew Nippert, The Gathering Learning Studio founders.

Meet The Gathering Team

Learning Coach

Founders

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