Raindrop Teachers
Layla
After majoring in French and minoring in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages at Western Washington University in 2009, and after less than a year of working with preschoolers at a French immersion P-8 school, I decided to study Early Childhood Education at North Seattle Community College, completing the AAS program in Fall 2014. I’ve rarely not been in school, or otherwise intentionally learning new things. Other things I regularly practice are: biking, cooking, gardening, reading sci-fi/fantasy and ECE non-fiction, playing puzzle solving video games, and traveling the world with my sweetheart. I’m also somewhat lackadaisically teaching myself to code (via a small stint with R, then Ruby, Python, Javascript, a glancing blow from SQL, and more recently, some C) with the assistance of my housemates, Joe (my sweetheart), Eric (Joe’s childhood best friend), and Mike (Joe’s older brother).
Megan Hughes
Hello! My name is Megan, and this is my first year Raindrop Room! I grew up in Boston and studied Biology and Environmental Studies in college. Since then, I have been an educator in different capacities – from serving in the Peace Corps in South Africa to traveling Washington State as an outreach educator. While I’ve worked with students of all ages, I especially love working with early learners. Their natural sense of wonder, curiosity, and joy is contagious. In my free time, I love being outside, running, hiking, or biking, and I love to bake – especially with chocolate!
Nick T.
Nick has been at Hilltop since July 2006. In that time he has worked with 3-5 year olds, and currently works with toddlers in the Raindrop Room. He enjoys the outdoors very much (backpacking/hiking and snowboarding), and anything that allows him and his dog, Ghenga, to romp around. Nick is also an active leader in The World Forum Foundation Men’s Working Group where they strive to promote Gender Balance in education; he also is on the Woodland Park Zoo’s Early Childhood Advisory Committee. Go Cougs!