Lars Esdal facilitates and provides leadership to Education Evolving's strategy development; the execution of its program; and the writing and distribution of its publications.
Lars is a graduate of the Minnesota New Country School, a student-centered, teacher-powered charter school in rural Minnesota. While there, he became convinced that students learn first and foremost from what they see modeled around them; when they see teachers exercising agency, collaboration, and shared leadership, they internalize and manifest those qualities in their own lives, communities, and workplaces.
Inspired by a desire to make student-centered learning available for all young people, Lars started working part-time as a student advocate with Education Evolving the fall after graduating from high school, while enrolled in college in Saint Paul. He became executive director of the organization in 2016.
In a prior life Lars was also a software designer and developer, and social media strategist. He founded a consultancy, which helped dozens of think tanks, foundations, and government agencies use the web to develop and distribute their ideas and advance policy change.
Lars holds a Bachelor of Arts from Macalester College, and a Master of Public Policy from Georgetown University. He is passionate about cooking, mixology, latin dance, and studying foreign languages. He is also President of the Labrador Foundation, a small private foundation that shares a theory of change with Education Evolving.
You can reach Lars at lars@educationevolving.org