For more than 30 years, educator and White Clay School director Andrea Shoap has been building a different kind of classroom—one grounded in relationships, curiosity, and the belief that every child deserves a way into learning.
Andrea Shoap wears a lot of hats.
Teacher is still the one she considers her craft. She taught for roughly 29 years before moving fully into administration, but directing White Clay School means her days can still include everything from curriculum and hiring to student intake, family meetings and supporting the people working inside each classroom.
“I’m mostly the mother to the staff,” she jokes.
White Clay itself grew from something deeply personal. In 1993, Andrea created a small homeschool environment for her own children because she wanted their early education to be smaller, more connected and more responsive to the way children actually develop.
Then other kids started showing up.
The quirky kids. The anxious kids. The kids who struggled in traditional classrooms. Andrea found herself drawn to them—and to figuring out what might help them thrive.
Today, White Clay is an approved private school serving neurodiverse students and children impacted by anxiety and trauma across the Chester and Delaware County region. The environment Andrea has built remains intentionally small, relationship-driven and deeply individual.
What does White Clay offer kids who haven’t thrived in a traditional classroom?
ANDREA: We give them a very small classroom with a high level of staff support, a high level of love and a high level of relationship building.
That relationship building is incredibly important. You’re helping a child feel safe and regulated so they can get to the part of the brain that can think, analyze and learn.
Was there a moment when you realized this approach really worked?
ANDREA: One of our first students was a little boy who was extremely dyslexic. At seven years old, being unable to read had really affected his sense of empowerment.
We scaled everything back. We put him in a smaller environment with a lot of one-to-one interaction and started teaching through what he loved—Legos, building, mechanical things.
It was about figuring out his brain: what it couldn’t manage, but also what it could manage.
He stayed with us for five years and did incredibly well. That was one of those moments where we thought, we’ve got this. We can do this for more kids.
Horses are also part of the picture. Why?
ANDREA: I’ve always loved what animals give to kids—that feeling of love and safety and joy, but also confidence and caring for something else.
Horses can be easily frightened. They need a caretaker. So suddenly a child who often feels overwhelmed in the world is responsible for being aware of their voice, their body and another living thing.
You never get tired of seeing a child get on a horse, ask it to stop or go, brush it, care for it. There are just so many layers to it.
After all these years, what still grounds you outside of school?
ANDREA: Anything outdoors. I love gardening. I love riding and working at the farm. I’m a big hiker, and health and fitness are a huge part of my life.
Being outside, being with my horses, digging in the dirt, hiking through the woods—that’s yoga to me. And connection with people is incredibly important, too.
And where do Dansko clogs enter the story?
ANDREA: Dansko was a love from the very beginning. We were always clog people.
My parents raised us in kind of a hippie environment in the ’60s and ’70s, so I grew up around clogs. We’d say, “Get a new pair of clogs for the school year.” We were some of the quirky farm kids wearing them to school.
When Dansko came along, it just felt natural. My mom got her first pair and told us about them, and we fell in love.
Now my sons are doctors and surgeons and they wear them. My daughter is a speech and language therapist and she wears them. It’s become a family thing.
Three decades into White Clay, what feels most consistent about the work?
Maybe Andrea answered that one before we ever asked it.
Find out what a child loves. Find out what they need. Build the relationship first.
Then make room for what comes next.
