Our founding visionary and lead administrator is Alys Robinson, whose lifelong passion, university career, and professional career has been dedicated to research and development of child-inspired education. All other administrators and educational leaders at Life Project are experienced educators. It’s important to us that the leaders and curriculum developers of a school are experienced, certified educators.

All of Life Project Education’s lead elementary and middle school teachers have university degrees, certified teaching credentials from their home countries, and extensive international experience. Many of our educators have advanced university degrees and specialized university certifications in fields such as Curriculum Design & Instruction, Educational Psychology, Special Education, Reading Specialist, Educational Leadership, Psychology, and more!

Regardless of previous experience, all new educators/mentors that join the LPE team move through a thoughtful, supportive community integration and Holistic Education training.

Our teachers are abundantly supported. We wish for our teachers to rise in their fullest capacity as creators and honor and fund all requests for curriculum, materials, and larger classroom upgrades within reason. All teachers have accounts at the local bookstores and print shops for unrestricted curriculum-design needs & instructional materials. Through our tuition investments, our school is committed to consistency allocating resources that directly impact the quality of education children receive.

As a school led by teachers, we recognize the importance of personal and professional growth and time to plan and prepare rich learning experiences. Teachers receive daily prep time for planning and mentorship, as well as weekly team meetings and monthly faculty connection gatherings. Our teachers have access to an extensive anthology of digital LPE curriculum, research, literature, and professional development materials. We offer teachers compensated after-hours planning time, as we all know the work of a passionate educator never ends at dismissal. We honor that! Each team (Early Year, Middle Years, Upper Years) additionally meet together in between trimesters to envision, collaborate, and co-create interdisciplinary learning experiences to prepare for each new learning cycle.

In the Early Years, parents receive seasonal qualitative holistic reports regarding the child’s scholastic and social-emotional progress. All evaluation is informal, anecdotal, non imposed (no tests or grades), and based on observation, work samples, and behavior.

Beginning in the middle years, children begin receiving bi-monthly progress reports for each course. Students receive both qualitative and quantitative feedback in two categories: Scholastic Progress and Energetic Approach. In this way, students are not solely evaluated on their actual scholastic proficiency; equally important is their effort, energy, and improvement.

Beginning in middle years, children also begin physical portfolios, anthologies of work samples that represent their progress. Upper years (Middle School) move to digital portfolios and receive end of year official transcripts.

Self reflection, goal setting, and growth through accountability is a daily component of our program.

YES! We are proudly operating “by the book” yet “out of the box”! It is very important to us to be in full integrity and honor all laws that govern business in our host country. We are a legally compliant sociedad jurídica (SRL), register as a “Centro Recreativo” rather than a government school. We are registered in hacienda, pay Costa Rican taxes and insurances, and hire all employees legally and ethically. Our school has an accountant, bookkeeper, legal representation, insurance assistant, and a COO. While this is an expensive model to commit to and sustain, it is non-negotiable for us to operate ethically, publicly, fearlessly, with longevity and we’ve been doing it successfully with not one legal issue or complaint in nearly 10 years.

We prioritize supporting the local community and hiring legal citizens and legal residents. Currently 100% of our Early Years teaching team are legal citizens and/or residents, and 70% of our Middle & Upper Years teaching team are Costa Rican by citizenship or legal residency. 75% of our employees are registered in Caja, 25% are hired as international specialists, and 100% of our employees are receiving legal, ethical salaries or stipends and this is very important to us.