Who tells your story? Alpaca's unique collaboration with an extraordinary school.
Team Letter | May 5, 2025
March 5, 2025
Happy March, Alpaca! This week we are busy down at SXSW EDU in Austin, and AASA’s National Conference on Education in New Orleans, where we’ll get the chance to present alongside our fantastic Nelson Mandela Elementary School partners — Susan Toohey and Genevive Core. We’ll be sharing how storytelling at school can help shape wellbeing for educators, by creating new ways to bring out teachers’ voices.
One of my favorite things we’ll share is also one of the coolest projects I’ve ever been a part of: Scholar, a book that tells the story of Nelson Mandela Elementary School’s educators, mission, and work.
Last year, Alpaca had the opportunity to help Mandela write the story of their school, which is a very unique model focused on dramatically improving student performance in a traditionally underserved community of North Omaha, Nebraska. The school focuses on literacy, family engagement, and a highly engaged team of educators.
Soon after we started Alpaca, we came up with the idea together — Alpaca would document the story of Nelson Mandela Elementary School through interviews, writing, and photos, in exchange for the opportunity to access the research and the stories of the educators and leaders who built it. This was deep dive customer research at its finest. It was also a chance to live out two of our core values — “Listen to Teachers” and “Tell Stories” in a really cool way.
The project taught us so much about how a new school comes into existence, what makes an intentional and joyful school culture, and how a team can truly live out its values every single day.
And little by little, our little book did something none of us were expecting — it gave us an opportunity to build pride and boost confidence in Mandela’s educator team, by telling their stories.
At first, educators were surprised when we asked them to be interviewed. “You want to interview me? I’m just a para educator” was something we heard. (this is a good time to mention how much I hate the word “just” in education!) We heard: “I guess I can tell you our story, but we were just doing our jobs.” And we heard “You don’t want a picture of me — get one of the principal!”
But then, we got in there. We interviewed the very first office staff, the very first classroom teachers, the very first parent volunteers, and the very first school leaders there.
We visited classrooms and watched teachers lead kids through phonics exercises, joined restorative circles, listened to the detailed accounts of so many of the school’s “firsts,” heard about the stuff that didn’t work so well, and watched violin recitals and sporting events led by engaged and extraordinary educators. Everything they showed us was built by a team with a vision, alignment, and autonomy.
As Mandela’s educators opened up, told us their stories, showed us their classrooms, and allowed our cameras to capture a bit of it, we watched something unexpected emerge.
We watched educators realize that they had created something beautiful together.
We watched educators realize they had something amazing to say about an intentional school culture.
And we saw them realize a renewed sense of pride in their team, their school, their scholars, and themselves.
Right before the book went to print, Susan made an important request: to include the full team photo prominently, and to list every name of every educator that has worked at the school. Because, “every single person that built this deserves to see their photo and their name in print.” To this day, that’s probably my favorite part of the book.
We talk a lot at Alpaca about the importance of educators feeling heard in their roles, and we’re building a lot of product to support that focus.
When we get opportunities to do it in big and little ways — at our booth at a conference, through a simple pulse check-in, or through a fully published book, we’re going to lean into it, because that’s our work — to listen to teachers. Tell their stories. And help educators feel truly seen and heard.
Onward, team! We have big listening to do and big stories to tell!
KB