The founding program. Four years transforming classrooms in nine LAUSD schools — and the pedagogical roots of everything Nest has built since.

Launched in 2015 in response to deep inequities in early education access across Los Angeles, the Collaborative Teacher Project partnered with nine Title I LAUSD schools over four years to transform classrooms and the teachers inside them. The program’s premise was simple and radical in equal measure: that children in under-resourced schools deserve the same quality of curious, joyful, child-led education as children anywhere — and that the teachers guiding them deserve the deep, sustained support to make that possible.

CTP mentors worked side-by-side with LAUSD teachers inside their own classrooms — not in workshops or one-off trainings, but in the room, week after week, mentoring, modeling, and building the kind of reflective teaching practice that changes how an educator sees children and their role in children’s learning. Weekly visits provided intensive, relationship-based support, helping teachers recognize the full competencies children bring to the classroom and their own vital role in fostering critical thinking, creative exploration, and collaborative learning.

The pedagogy that emerged from those four years — child-centered, inquiry-based, grounded in curiosity and democratic values — is the same pedagogy that now guides Nest programs on three continents. Every Nest classroom, from Mbare to Mumosho to downtown Los Angeles, carries the fingerprints of what was first practiced and refined in partnership with LAUSD teachers and their students.