Staff
Megan
Executive Director
Megan Wilson has been working with preschool children for over 10 years and has been at Tree House Hollow since 2007. She has a California Early Childhood Education Program Director Permit and has attained more than 30 units in Early Childhood Education. She holds a BA degree in Environmental Studies with a focus in Outdoor Leadership, and a minor in Early Childhood Education from Sonoma State University. She also is a certified wilderness first responder. Megan has a large theatre and gardening background and deep interests in education, the environment, sustainability, and helping young people become good stewards of our planet. One of her greatest joys is helping children learn to identify plant and animal species and marvel at them. She co-created and led our Adventure Day Program at Creekside- bringing students off campus to climb, wade, and immerse in nature. She left her Creekside Director position at the end of the school year in 2017 to have her son, and returned in November 2017 to take over the Executive Director position- overseeing both campuses. Megan is excited to be back at Tree House Hollow and will help guide the vision for our school.
Holly
Creekside Campus Director
Holly Link began working at Tree House Hollow in 2014, shortly after moving from Santa Cruz to pursue her Master's Degree in Early Education (just a week after completing a Bachelor's in Human Development through Pacific Oaks College). After substituting in a variety of other programs in the area, Holly found her niche at our school, falling in love with the focus on children's social/emotional skill building, and the emphasis on the natural world. These components of our philosophy were the inspiration for her thesis! Holly has been working with children for well over a decade, and it is a passion that is woven throughout many aspects of her life. In the classroom, she enjoys storytelling, mess making, and creating with the children, as much as possible! Upon completing her MA, Holly hopes to teach adults at the college level, training the next generation of Early Educators, while still working in the classroom with young children.
Jamie
Redwood Campus Director
Jamie Pitts joined our Redwood campus in February 2018, she is new to Sebastopol and is looking forward to enjoying all that Sonoma County has to offer. She has 33 early childhood education units; her specialization is children with special needs and administration. She has been working with young children for 16 years. Most of her experience is teaching Preschool at the two year old age, and she has some Nanny experience as well. Her favorite thing about working with children is watching where their curiosity takes them, and getting to know all of their personalities! Jamie loves to explore the outdoors with children and feels that children are naturally connected to nature and it’s extremely important that they spend time outdoors. Jamie took her first trip out of North America in November of 2017 to attend a friend’s wedding in Thailand. The most memorable parts of her trip were going to an ethical elephant sanctuary and seeing monkeys jumping from cliffs to swim in the ocean. In her free time she loves to read, spend time with friends and family, and take trips to the coast!
Becca
Adventure Day Program Lead
Becca Shryock has been working with children for over 15 years in both private homes and preschools. She grew up outside of Los Angeles and received a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from CSU Channel Islands. She studied Psychology & Child Development abroad for one year in Copenhagen, Denmark and got hands on experience working in a Danish børnehave (preschool). This is where she fell in love with the Danish models of forest schools and nature-based classrooms, allowing play-based curiosities to unfold organically. She then moved to Sligo, Ireland as a nanny for two Irish boys, ages 2 and 5. Here is where she fell in love with Irish trad music, the rain, and forests in every shade of green imaginable (and the magical fairies who reside in them)! After returning home and completing her early childhood education she moved here to the North Bay to be closer to redwood forests, the crisp coast, and close friends who are no longer far away. She is so happy to be part of Tree House Hollow and the every day wonders that will occur with children in such a magical place!
Maricela
Creekside Bilingual Teacher
Maricela Rodriguez was born in Michoacán Mexico. She came to the United States with her family (her four children and her husband) 12 years ago. She has an Associate Teachers Certificate from Santa Rosa Junior College and has more than 7 years of experience working with elementary school aged children in her country. She has worked at Tree House Hollow since 2009. Her four children have attended Twin Hills School District and her youngest daughter luckily also had the opportunity to attend Tree House Hollow Preschool. Maricela loves to share her heritage through teaching curriculum that is both bilingual and bicultural and teach Spanish to the children in their daily interaction. She exudes warmth and humor and believes a curriculum is the most meaningful when it arises from the true interests of the children. She loves cooking with the children, writing story plays, practicing positive discipline techniques, and playing cooperative games that reinforce children’s self-esteem, teamwork, and self-managing skills.
Alexandra
Creekside and Adventure Program Teacher
Alexandra Sanchez is in her third year working at Tree House Hollow. She started in the Summer of 2015 as an intern, and continued in the Fall as an assistant while she finished her BA in Early Childhood Studies at Sonoma State University. Alexandra hopes to continue her education with a teaching credential. She found her passion in teaching young children through her grandmother, a preschool teacher of over 25 years. Alexandra loves to play games, cook, read stories, and sing songs with children. Outside of the preschool Alexandra enjoys hiking, reading, and writing stories.
Alana
Redwood Teacher
Alana McGrath spent 5 years teaching preschool in the Bay Area in both Montessori and Reggio-Emilia programs. She has a BA in Jazz Performance and a creative writing minor from NYU and completed her Montessori teaching credential in the East Bay. Since moving to Sonoma County, she pursued a permaculture design certification and has been raising dairy goats and focusing her efforts toward sustainable land projects. Alana is excited to bridge her interests in art, the natural world, child development, and nurturing community at Tree House Hollow. She lives in North Petaluma with her husband, cat, and goats. In her free time she plays saxophone, gardens, explores on foot, writes poetry, paints, and makes merry.
Ashley
Creekside and Adventure Program Teacher
Ashley Lopez has always wanted to be a teacher. When she graduated high school she decided to go to the Santa Rosa Junior College to pursue a teaching certificate. While she was attending school she got married, and had a sweet little boy in July of 2018. Soon after she found Tree House Hollow and fell in love with their nature based and social emotional curriculum. Ashley's parents are big on traveling and she has traveled to Mexico, Italy, Spain, Canada, and all around the US, and she hopes one day to travel to India! Camping was also one of her family's favorite ways to travel around California. Exploring and being outdoors is something Ashley grew up with and has a passion for. She decided that this school is the place she wants to be, to grow and build herself into being the teacher she’s always wanted to be!
Reni
Redwood Teacher
Reni de la Fuente is a Sebastopol native and has worked with children of all ages at Parkside Elementary School’s after school daycare center. Reni has studied Early Childhood Development since 2014 at the SRJC, where she has acquired her 31 Child Development units and Associate Degree. Reni is half Peruvian, is semi-bilingual and is excited to incorporate Spanish into her lesson plans at Tree House Hollow. Reni is very family oriented, and her close ties to her family, both here and in Peru, are a very important part of her life. Starting from a young age, she has always known that her strong love of children would lead her into a career where she could work with them in some way. In her free-time, she enjoys being one with nature, gardening, hiking, swimming, kayaking, and taking walks on the beach. She also enjoys cooking and experimenting with new foods, getting messy outside, making art, and spending time with her dog, Rosie. Reni’s future goals are to graduate college with a BA in Child Development and obtain her teaching credential.
Ruth
Admin Support
Ruth Wilson helps Megan with a variety of support tasks, from the mundane to the magical. She is also mother to Megan and grandmother to darling Reid. She has worked as a part of the catalog production and toy invention team at HearthSong, as a floral designer, technical and creative writer, and office manager. She loves to garden, sew, and bake cakes. Ruth enjoys her occasional visits to the campuses where she sees so many smiling faces.
Franny
Founder, Former Director, Volunteer and Substitute Teacher
At the young age of 19 Franny began teaching preschool at the request of her child development teacher and discovered it as her life's work. After receiving her BA and Teaching Credential, with an emphasis in Early Childhood Education from Sonoma State University, Tree House Hollow opened in 1981 as a large family child care home in Sebastopol. Franny continued her education and taught child development classes at Santa Rosa Junior College, Merritt and Alameda Colleges in the East Bay before moving the program to the Apple Blossom Campus in 2007. Franny believes creating a community of families is an important aspect of your preschool experience. Since retiring 6 years ago she volunteers once a week when not traveling and enjoys gardening, cooking and singing with the children. Franny teaches Positive Discipline Parenting Classes and continues to have family meetings with her 38 and 32 year old daughters, Maggie and Zoe, their partners, Jamie and Dylan and her husband Glenn.
Louie
Substitute Teacher
Louie Ferrera is a recently retired 20 year veteran of the elementary school classroom. Thirteen of those years were spent teaching first and second grades at Apple Blossom School. Louie and his wife Carol are the proud parents of twins who were students at Tree House Hollow ten years ago! Their family helped move THH from Franny’s house onto the Apple Blossom campus, so, for Louie, it is particularly exciting to be back. One of Louie’s great passions is music. He is an accomplished guitarist and songwriter and has released two cds of original songs. Of course he loves sharing the gift of music with children. Singing had always been an important part of the day during his tenure in the classroom. Look for Louie with a guitar slung over his shoulder heading towards school!
