NEW: Zach Lahn’s Troubled Kansas School is $4.5 Million in Debt — Now He Wants to Bring it to Iowa
Lahn criticized Iowa public schools in emails promoting the Wonder School
DES MOINES – A new investigative report from the Kansas Reflector raises serious questions about Zach Lahn’s unaccredited Wonder School in Kansas. Lahn took shots at Iowa public schools to promote the Wonder School and promised to import his failed Kansas school model to Iowa while sticking taxpayers with the bill.
According to the Kansas Reflector, the Wonder School owes $4.5 million in debt to Lahn and his wife after “years of operating deficits. That financial reality clashes with Lahn’s persona as an educational innovator, a prominent feature of his campaign.” He has called the Wonder School “the best model for reinventing” Iowa schools, even though it wasn’t “equipped to serve students with … special education needs” and failed to follow IRS recommendations surrounding conflicts of interest. Lahn even invoked the Wonder School on the campaign trail to defend Iowa’s unaccountable private school voucher scheme.
Lahn claimed he “will be the number one advocate for Iowa’s public school kids” as a campaign talking point, but he disparaged Iowa public schools while promoting the Wonder School in July. According to the Kansas Reflector, “Lahn put his name to 15 promotional emails,” saying “visitors to Wonder could see it operated on a different level than conventional schools, including his alma mater, Sioux City East High School … He shared reflections on what a joy it was to see six of his children at Wonder.”
Lahn used Sioux City East High School to introduce himself to Iowa voters in a new campaign ad — all while criticizing that same school as part of his Kansas business pitch to promote his failed school.
From Iowa Democratic Party spokesperson Terra Hernandez:
“It’s never been more clear Zach Lahn will be a disaster for Iowa public schools, as more information comes to light about how he is continuing to run a failed private school in Kansas that’s $4.5 million in debt. Lahn took cheap shots at Iowa public schools to make his business look better, so Iowans deserve to know: Why is Lahn still running this school in Kansas, why does it owe him and his wife millions of dollars, and did he use taxpayer money to pay back his own loan?”
Read more from the Kansas Reflector here, or key points below:
- The Kansas school’s expenses exceeded revenue in five of six years. In the six-year period, Wonder owed more than it owned. Flush with startup cash in its initial 2½ years, the school was propped up in 2021 and 2022 with $615,000 in personal loans from Annie and Zach Lahn, two of the school’s founders. By 2025, Wonder owed the Lahns approximately $4.5 million.
- The nonprofit school’s most recent Internal Revenue Service 990, which was filed in May, showed the Lahns were each owed $2.26 million by Wonder. The couple’s generosity, and the infusion of $320,000 in federal business grants and loans, helped the school survive years of operating deficits. That financial reality clashes with Lahn’s persona as an educational innovator, a prominent feature of his campaign.
- In July, Lahn put his name to 15 promotional emails sent over a 15-day period to parents of prospective pre-K-12 students. He said visitors to Wonder could see it operated on a different level than conventional schools, including his alma mater, Sioux City East High School. Lahn’s messages included memories of how the birth of his first son inspired him to reimagine education. He shared reflections on what a joy it was to see six of his children at Wonder.
- Lahn’s campaign declined multiple requests to schedule an interview with Kansas Reflector about academic and financial details of Wonder.
- Lahn said he moved from Kansas to Iowa in 2023, but for co-parenting reasons, children in his family stayed in Kansas. … Since announcing his candidacy for governor in 2025, Lahn has frequently traveled between Iowa and Kansas to be with family. Through it all, Lahn remained the face of the Wichita school as he survived the GOP primary campaign and entered a general election fight against Democratic gubernatorial nominee Rob Sand.
- Amid Lahn’s advocacy for the constitutional right to bear arms and legislation allowing people to possess firearms at schools, he didn’t address a Wichita Police Department report in September 2023 that shows his $8,000 Ithaca Colt 1911 handgun, two .45-caliber magazines and a Ford Excursion were stolen from Wonder school.
- Lahn’s campaign declined written and verbal requests to explain circumstances that allowed the weapon to be left on school property in a location where it could be stolen.
- The school wouldn’t be equipped to serve students with other special education needs.
- Lahn has expressed dissatisfaction that Wonder, organized on a multi-age studio model similar to a microschool, wouldn’t qualify for ESA funding in Iowa if it didn’t earn state accreditation.
- The Montessori-style school in Wichita, which has never sought accreditation from the Kansas State Department of Education, received $1.6 million in grants and contributions before its doors opened in 2018. That was followed by donations of $1.3 million in 2018-2019. Revenue from student tuition in that two-year period totaled $284,000. Without cash from benefactors, the school wouldn’t have covered expenses of $2.6 million in those formative years.
- The financial status of Wonder began to wobble in 2020 amid Annie Koch’s divorce from Chase Koch and Lahn’s divorce from his spouse. Eleven days after paperwork terminating those marriages was finalized, Lahn and Annie Koch applied for their marriage license in Montana. These co-founders of Wonder continued in positions of authority at the Wichita school.
- Wonder benefitted from $170,000 in COVID-19 relief loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration tied to the Paycheck Protection Loan program. The pandemic loans in 2020 and 2021 were forgiven by the federal government. In 2020, SBA provided Wonder a separate $150,000 disaster loan. The SBA took a security interest in Wonder Inc.’s property, which was extended in 2025 for five years.
- Zach and Annie Lahn, the only publicly disclosed members of Wonder’s board of trustees, responded to the school’s financial distress with loans of $615,000. Subsequently, the school moved into its own off-campus building in Wichita valued at approximately $3.8 million. The school’s debt to the Lahns surged to $4.5 million, IRS records show. It wasn’t clear from public records whether Wonder school had taken steps to repay the Lahns.
- The Lahns’ financial intervention triggered, every year since 2021, formal disclosures to the IRS of conflict-of-interest-transactions. The nonprofit’s filings were necessary because the Lahns were not only administrative officers at Wonder but the school’s largest creditor. While Zach Lahn served as board president and treasurer, Annie Lahn was board secretary and a trustee. The structure is contrary to IRS recommendations that nonprofit boards avoid domination by employees or others who lacked independence due to family or business ties.
- He told the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition his commitment to public funding of Educational Savings Accounts was unshakable. The way to sustain private schools was to rely on state resources to enroll as many students as possible, he said.
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