LPS employees earn Heartland Emmy for heartfelt documentary

Brian Seifferlein and David Koehn want to use powerful and personal storytelling to highlight the life-changing efforts of Lincoln Public Schools students and staff.
 
The two Library Media Services staff members saw that hard work pay off in a bright way this year with a Heartland Emmy Award for one of their videos from “The Seat Beside You” series. Seifferlein and Koehn earned the prestigious honor for “The World of Lisbeth” short film. This is the first time the school district has received this recognition.

“We really just want this to be something that shines a light on LPS and all of the great teams here,” Koehn said. 

“We really feel that LPS won this award,” Seifferlein said. “It’s not our award. I really do feel that way. It’s not just humble pie or anything like that. This award was a product of the work that so many people do in this school district.”

The 17-minute documentary follows the immigration journey of a mother and daughter who came to Lincoln from Guatemala. Both are now thriving in the city after overcoming many challenges. 

Seifferlein and Koehn felt there were many people who deserved recognition for the award. They worked on the project with multiple LPS employees from various departments, including Federal Programs. Former LPS employee Marta Boucher was a co-producer and two of the main people featured in the film – Lisbeth and her mother Hilda – trusted Seifferlein and Koehn to share their story.
 
“We want this to spotlight what other people are doing here. There are so many people who do incredible work, and if they weren’t doing that, there would be no story. None of this would be possible if they weren’t here,” Koehn said. 
 
The documentary explores Hilda’s decision to help her daughter by moving to the United States. Lisbeth suffered a traumatic brain injury when she was an infant, and Hilda was unable to find adequate medical care or special-education services in Guatemala. They immigrated to Lincoln when Lisbeth was in kindergarten and secured the help they needed.
 
Lisbeth is now a successful student at Prescott Elementary School. She especially enjoys math and has friends throughout the building. Hilda works at Lincoln High as a custodian in the afternoons and evenings. Seifferlein said she has earned respect from hundreds of people there for her work ethic and courageous attitude.
 
“It’s a cool thing to see,” Seifferlein said. “It’s great to see good things happening to them.”
 
Koehn and LPS Director of Library Services Chris Haeffner both said it was powerful to watch how many people cared about Lisbeth and Hilda. Lisbeth’s kindergarten teacher, Rachel Frank, was instrumental in providing support for the family, and speech-language pathologists, English Language Learners (ELL) instructors, building supervisors and classroom teachers all joined together in the effort.
 
“I think this award highlights the many layers of support and cooperation that LPS commits to serving students and families,” Haeffner said. “Through this short glimpse, we see the full force of our school community coming together to help this mother and daughter navigate a new country, a new city and a new school system. That’s pretty amazing, and even more so when considering that this is just a single story!
 
“There are countless examples of this in LPS, which is why we’re so proud to be able to tell stories like this that feature both an incredible family and dedicated teachers, bilingual liaisons and LPS staff.”
 
“It’s a testament to how LPS pulls together to help all students,” Koehn said. “When we say ‘all means all,’ this is what we’re talking about. Everyone here truly wants to help every student and every family.”
 
Seifferlein and Koehn submitted the documentary to a panel of judges for the first round of the selection process. Judges chose a group of nominees after evaluating each entry on content, creativity and artistic/technical execution. The Heartland Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) then determined which nominees would receive Heartland Emmys.

“The World of Lisbeth” wasn’t the team’s only Heartland Emmy nod. The pair was also nominated for another “The Seat Beside You” video titled “Tommy’s Light.” 
 
Seifferlein and Koehn plan to collaborate with Prescott Elementary leaders to display the Heartland Emmy there in the future. Prescott students would be able to take photos with the award and learn that their school was an Emmy-winning building.
 
Seifferlein said they want to continue highlighting the difference-making efforts of LPS students and staff for many years to come.
 
“This is the great thing about the power of storytelling,” Seifferlein said. “We’re able to tell a story that shows people what is happening in our district in a personal way. It shows what the classroom teachers are doing and the speech-language pathologists and the EL teachers and everyone else.
 
“If we can do something that captures the attention of other people, then we can tell them about all of the good things that are happening here at LPS and all of the LPS services that are offered. That’s our biggest goal with this.”

Learn more about “The Seat Beside You” docuseries or make a submission on our website at https://home.lps.org/seatbesideyou/. 

Do you have a story idea? Share it with the LPS Communications Team by filling out this form!

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