How This Chief Makes use of Gaming to Change Students’ Lives

At 75, Laurie Lehman is an unlikely champion for the buzzy and decidedly younger world of esports.

Her data of fashionable video video games is huge. She’s mastered players’ insidery jargon: peripherals, shoutcasting, controllers, switchers.

Lehman isn’t only a septuagenarian with an uncommon affinity for what makes youthful generations tick. She’s a bona fide pressure to reckon with within the nationwide esports panorama.

Over the final seven years, Lehman has constructed one of the vital sturdy and well-funded esports applications within the nation for the Albuquerque public faculty district.

She created this system from scratch, elevating over $120,000 in grants and sponsorships, together with $20,000 for college kids who went on to play aggressive esports in faculty, and one other $20,000 for college kids who participated in state-level esports championships.

She’s coaxed, cajoled, and collaborated with dad and mom, principals, college students, and district bigwigs to take esports from a marginal after-school membership exercise to a full-blown curricular and profession pathway for the district’s college students.

Esport golf equipment and lessons inside APS have additionally develop into inviting areas for all college students. Kids concerned with esports at the moment are extra eager to attend faculty, really feel extra concerned, and make and hold friendships extra simply, in response to district surveys.

APS has near 45 esports golf equipment in its elementary, center, and excessive faculties, run by over 100 esports coaches. Lehman directed over $160,000 further faculty district {dollars} to fund these positions and to supply skilled growth for the educators who fill them.

“I love breaking the mold and breaking the rules and bringing esports as an ambassador,” Lehman stated. “I love it.”

For more often than not Lehman spearheaded this system, the esports work got here on high of a full-time gig because the district’s price range and undertaking supervisor.

“I would work all day for all these years, and then in any free time I got, or after I finished all my work, that’s when I got this whole program going,” stated Lehman.

In January 2026, Lehman handed on the budgeting job to a colleague in order that she may focus solely on esports. She plans to assist create distinctive profession and technical schooling esports pathways in drone administration and mass communication.

The esports program Lehman constructed from scratch rivals that of bigger, better-resourced districts

By 2018, when Lehman began to construct APS’s esports program, the sphere had already exploded, as faculties and faculties sought to faucet into the multibillion-dollar gaming trade.

That pattern has solely continued to speed up lately.

Over 300 universities within the United States now provide scholarships to gifted esports gamers. And scholastic esports—gaming that embeds studying —can launch associated careers in occasion administration, cybersecurity, podcasting, and graphic design.

Lehman needed a chunk of that motion for her roughly 65,000-student faculty district, New Mexico’s largest. And she knew simply the accomplice to faucet: the Network of Academic and Scholastic Esports Federations, a global nonprofit that promotes the expansion of scholastic esports in faculties within the United States and overseas.

Esports “is the proverbial Trojan horse way to bring kids [in] and have them thrive and reach their potential,” stated Gerald Solomon, the founder and director of NASEF, which has helped set up over 3,500 highschool esports applications throughout the nation.

Lehman stands out among the many lots of of district leaders he’s collaborated with, Solomon stated.

“Innovation is a big part of who Laurie is and what she’s built over the years,” stated Solomon, who started working with Lehman on the Albuquerque program about eight years in the past.

Lehman leaned on NASEF’s free esports curriculum to create one for APS, adapting it to New Mexico’s requirements.

“She took something that kids enjoy … and turned it into something that was educational and also fun for the teachers to teach,” Solomon stated.

These days, the district’s esports program, with its state-approved curriculum, multitude of golf equipment, a number of annual occasions, and funding from big-ticket sponsors like Microsoft and XFINITY, simply stands shoulder to shoulder with the alternatives provided at a lot bigger, extra distinguished faculty together with in Los Angeles, Miami, New York, or Nashville, Tenn., Solomon added.

“Her primary goal in the next few years is to have APS be a shining example to school districts around the United States and possibly around the world,” stated Solomon.

From 100 college students to 1,500: Why esports grew to become a hub for each kind of pupil

For Lehman, esports was by no means nearly taking part in video video games.

She envisioned esport golf equipment and lessons as areas that might welcome all forms of college students, no matter their households’ earnings degree or their very own bodily skills.

Esports have lit up pathways for college kids who weren’t desirous about pursuing a school diploma or technology-related careers, she stated.

“At events, kids come up to me and ask, “What can you do with esports?” stated Lehman. She makes the connection for them, explaining that taking part in pc video games can pave the way in which for school programs in pc know-how.

That’s notably thrilling for youths who excel at gaming however are nonetheless looking for their educational and social footing.

Participation in esports pays dividends for pupil engagement

When Lehman began off in 2018, solely a handful of scholars—about 100—from just a few excessive faculties performed or confirmed curiosity in esports. That quantity has now swelled to over 1,500, in response to Lehman.

At Del Norte High School, as an illustration, esports coach Marta Anderson stated 25% of the varsity’s 1,000-plus inhabitants is now concerned with esports as an after-school exercise or examine it as an elective.

Del Norte’s esports lab obtained a glow-up too: Back in 2018, this system started as 5 PCs shared amongst about half a dozen college students in a closet-like room. Now, Anderson runs two labs with 27 gaming computer systems, a video manufacturing lab, a racing simulator, and a 3D printer.

“Laurie is amazing at finding the money,” stated Anderson, who has labored with Lehman to construct the esports footprint inside the district.

Lehman’s efforts have put at the least 90 gaming computer systems at 18 of the district’s excessive faculties, Anderson added.

And Lehman is at all times on the hunt for extra monetary sponsors. Past funders have included marquee names like Microsoft—tapped free of charge computer systems—and the cable firm XFINITY. Building and sustaining partnerships with these gamers to gasoline esports’ enlargement in APS is one among Lehman’s most important targets.

The larger win, in Anderson’s view: Eighty p.c of Del Norte’s college students concerned with esports come to high school day-after-day, a vivid spot within the post-pandemic, nationwide pattern of chronically absent college students. New Mexico’s persistent absenteeism price—outlined as lacking greater than 10% of faculty days in a yr—peaked at 40% within the 2021-22 faculty yr. That price declined to 30% within the 2024-25 faculty yr, which nonetheless means 1 in 3 New Mexico college students missed greater than 10% of faculty days.

Esports has develop into a conduit for a greater connection between college students and their faculties. It’s additionally a pleasant segue into extracurriculars for youths who don’t match into the cliques or typical golf equipment center and excessive faculties provide, Lehman stated.

Esports golf equipment and lessons, at Del Norte and different excessive faculties, give all college students a “sense of belonging” that they might not have related to faculties earlier than, stated Lehman.

In a 2025 districtwide survey of over 1,100 APS college students, about half stated they felt “totally connected” to their faculties after they began taking part in esports. Just 17% of these college students felt such a robust connection earlier than getting concerned with this system.

“They make friends. They learn about sportsmanship. They start believing in themselves,” stated Lehman.

Lehman has introduced lecturers into the esports fold

Lehman’s efforts have additionally persuaded extra lecturers like Anderson to teach esports. The center and excessive faculties have over 100 coaches put collectively.

These coaches—the vast majority of whom are additionally full-time lecturers— run the after-school golf equipment, educate esport electives, and assist college students grasp social-emotional abilities like teamwork and collaboration via gaming. Esports coaches obtain a stipend of $25 a hour for this work.

Institutionalizing esports hasn’t been a straightforward job. As this system expands, so do the challenges. A giant one is cash: Paying coaches could also be a problem within the new faculty yr, as grant funding for stipends dwindles.

The faculty board, regardless of its general assist for the esports program, nonetheless hasn’t authorized a price range for this system Esports is on the superintendent’s radar, however dipping math and studying achievement demand extra pressing consideration.

Getting allies on board

In a earlier life, Lehman was an anthropologist by coaching and a photographer by career. She was based mostly in Santa Fe, however her travels took her everywhere in the world—to the jungles of Panama, as an illustration, the place she lived among the many Kuna Indian tribe to finish her grasp’s thesis.

In 2011, the deteriorating well being situation of a member of the family modified the course of Lehman’s profession. She stop her freewheeling life-style to hitch the Santa Fe public faculty system. In 2018, she moved to APS, the place she was tapped by Richard Bowman, the district’s know-how director, to launch an esports program.

Bowman believed esports could possibly be a secret weapon for pupil engagement. In Lehman, Bowman discovered a accomplice who shared his imaginative and prescient.

“It was a no-brainer. I’d seen how much kids get out of esports,” Lehman stated, referencing her personal sons who have been players from an early age.

It was simple for her to slide into the function of an esports ambassador as a result of, like her college students, Lehman discovered the sort of shut connections she craved within the esports group, each contained in the district and past.

Esports additionally “opened up” one thing in Lehman, as a result of it reminded her of what she had found about societal bonds as an anthropologist.

“When you study culture, you realize that pretty much all over the world, people are the same,” Lehman stated. “We need to work together more to see all the similarities and how we can help each other. And so, I got into education. And when I got into esports, it was an easy progression.”

To make inroads with the district, Lehman and Bowman knew they needed to change how others perceived esports.

For principals and fogeys—and crucially, district-level resolution makers—esports conjured up photographs of lonely youngsters holed up of their basement, spending hours taking part in video video games.

Eight years in the past, when Lehman and Bowman went to the Albuquerque faculty board to speak about launching a districtwide esports program, they met stiff resistance. The board thought esports have been “dangerous,” Lehman recalled

Lehman combatted that notion via a mixture of knowledge and good storytelling, Bowman stated. In 2019, she produced an “esports annual report,” a pastiche of real-life tales and pupil quotes. It painted an image of how gaming helped college students join with new buddies and develop a way of belonging, which inspired them to attend faculty.

Those anecdotes have been backed up by compelling knowledge. Forty-one p.c of taking part college students stated esports improved their attendance. And 57% stated esports helped them to “make and keep friends.”

“I got her in the room with the right people,” stated Bowman, “but she wove the stories together.”

It labored: the board softened its stance in opposition to esports, clearing the way in which for the duo to ask extra faculties to launch esport golf equipment and lessons.

Lehman then labored to transform different key gamers into allies. For occasion, she created an in depth playbook that principals may use to persuade dad and mom that gaming may result in a extra partaking faculty life for his or her youngsters.

The membership to profession journey

A substantive a part of Lehman’s imaginative and prescient was to show esports right into a curricular choice, not simply an enticing after-school exercise. If gaming may create alternatives for school, or work put up high-school, Lehman knew acceptance and funding would comply with.

“In a club, you get the competition. You learn how to win. You learn how to lose. But in the classroom, you learn about careers, you learn about your potential, you learn about finding what you want to do,” stated Lehman.

To facilitate that work, Lehman and Bowman created the New Mexico Scholastic Esports Federation, modeled on the worldwide physique NASEF.

That enabled them to deliver educators, esports coaches, and curriculum specialists collectively to create curriculum that would give college students pathways to school programs starting from cybersecurity to occasion administration, all via esports.

The curriculum took form in 2023 and was authorized by the New Mexico Public Education Department. APS created its first esports class for highschool college students within the 2023-24 faculty yr.

In its third yr now, the esports elective is a well-liked one at Del Norte High School. Anderson, a former math trainer, has pivoted to educating the elective, which seeks to construct teamwork and collaboration.

Students overview the historical past of esports—from its penny arcade beginnings to its present standing as a booming multibillion-dollar trade. They additionally study graphic design, construct their very own web sites, and create authentic video games and work out tips on how to market them.

The course concludes with an essay examination that asks college students to contemplate large image questions concerning the trade.

Creating extra champions

Members of Anderson’s authentic esports workforce at the moment are graduating from faculty. Three former college students are planning to pursue superior levels in cybersecurity or different STEM topics.

Vy Nguyen, the primary lady to hitch the esports membership at Del Norte, lately graduated with a bachelor’s diploma in administration data programs from the University of New Mexico.

Nguyen path to school really began from the closet-like esports lab at Del Norte, she stated.

Nguyen moved to the United States from Vietnam on the age of seven. Her immigrant dad and mom had set excessive expectations. Being a star League of Legends participant wasn’t one among them.

“They didn’t want [esports to] impact my studies,” Nguyen stated.

Nguyen, the one lady on a workforce of about half a dozen boys, performed anyway, serving as workforce captain in interschool competitions.

She credit her participation in esports—each in highschool and later in faculty—with serving to her land her first internship, at a lab that was impressed by her ardour for gaming.

Playing, and captaining, esports taught Nyguen to be affected person and collaborate with others, even when she doesn’t agree with them.

Now, Nyguen is a vital ally for Lehman, who invitations her to speak to college students and their dad and mom concerning the profession alternatives that esports can open.

Getting esports gamers the popularity different athletes obtain

In 2023, Lehman sought to determine a “signing day” expertise for esport athletes heading off to school. She needed them to really feel as acknowledged and celebrated as somebody who’d received a soccer scholarship.

But the athletics departments at numerous district faculties declined to let esports athletes be a part of their present ceremonies. So Lehman created one only for esports, giving every graduating participant between $500 to $1,000, financed from donations and grants.

Now, even dad and mom like Nguyen’s see the magic of esports.

“I graduated top of my class and I have an internship,” Nguyen stated. “I think they realize that I play video games but can still do all this.”