Andre Zarate

Edupreneur/Educator/Leader

Andre is an educator, leader, innovator, and edupreneur, who spent the last ten years mostly in Chicago, IL, but also in New York, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia. He is the founder of House of Legends, a liberating, dream space that centers LGBTQ+ youth of color, where we create new worlds and universes to find home within. We use imagination, healing, literacy, arts, and youth passions to co-design a space that makes for a braver, bolder, and more radically inclusive world. Also, he founded The Z Factor, LLC focusing on inclusive and brave education for LGBTQ+ youth. Over his career, he has won multiple awards for excellence in teaching and culturally responsive practices including Illinois State Teacher of the Year Finalist in 2016 and Teach for America Chicago's Alumni Excellence in Teaching Award in 2018. Andre holds a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies with a minor in Urban Education from the University of Pennsylvania in 2012. The following year, he received his Master of Science in Elementary Education from the Graduate School of Education at UPenn. Immediately after, he joined Teach for America Chicago-Northwest Indiana in 2013. Andre is finishing his doctoral program in Educational Leadership also with the Graduate School of Education at UPenn in 2024, where his research project focuses on Queer Filipinx Youth and their usage of imagination to make sense of identity, define queer joy, and build new worlds.