our teachers

Mountain School teachers are such a special part of this school. These are our amazing head teachers, who, as you'll read below, pour their heart and soul into teaching... 

teacher Jutta

Teacher Jutta has been part of the Mountain School community since 1999 when first her daughter Kristie (26) and then two years later her son Alex (23) began their journeys through the 2s, 3s, 3/4/5s (as it was called then), and 4/5s classes. After her children left Mountain School, Jutta stayed and started assisting in the 3s, 3/4s, and Sat PM classes. With the experience of 17 years as an assistant teacher, she stepped into the role of the 3/4s headteacher last year leading a class that she enjoyed very much as a parent as well as a teacher. She continues assisting in the Sat PM class.

Jutta has always appreciated Mountain School’s emphasis on nature and the outdoors, and how it teaches valuable life lessons through its outdoor classroom. She has fond memories of her childhood in a suburb of Hamburg, Germany, spent mostly outdoors, rain or shine, roaming the neighborhood, nearby fields, marshlands, and forests with her friends, three younger brothers, and neighborhood children. Jutta believes that children benefit from time outdoors and in nature in multiple ways. She loves exploring the world with children and seeing it through their eyes. She learns from and with them, and their curiosity and sense of wonder amaze and inspire her. Jutta likes to approach children with respect, gentleness, and patience. She genuinely enjoys listening to their stories and discovering each child’s uniqueness. Being in the moment with children and learning with them through play is a true gift and exciting adventure.

A lifetime ago, Jutta worked in the semiconductor industry developing microprocessors and planning the demand and production of miniscule electronic parts. However, once she had children, she could no longer see herself in that environment and joining Mountain School’s teaching staff was perfect. While working at Mountain School, Jutta has been studying early childhood education at West Valley College and additionally keeping herself current on play-, nature-, and outdoor-based as well as forest school education. Learning forest school-style is another passion of hers, and she occasionally works at the Santa Cruz Forest School in Felton.

During her free time, Jutta enjoys hiking, reading, yoga, gardening, traveling, and spending time with her family, friends, and dog. She feels fortunate to live in the beautiful San Lorenzo Valley with so many wonderful opportunities for hiking and exploring and so close to California’s magnificent coastline.

teacher Alis, Co-Director

Teacher Alis has a knack for leading adventures, telling stories, playing and connecting with little people. She strives to foster resilience, collaboration, empathy and creativity in forest school environments. Forest classrooms offer emergent learning discovery paths rich in experiential learning, sensory play, vestibular growth opportunities, and of course lots of creeks, sticks and mud.

Alis is fascinated by links she sees between little people’s play and the big people’s concept of design thinking. Early childhood is when we expand the neural pathways for inherent skills like synthesis, empathy, problem definition, ideation, curiosity and experimentation. The more she observes children the more she realizes how young brains lay the foundations for a lifetime of design.

Alis has a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Industrial Design from the Rhode Island School of Design. In addition to a Palo Alto Unified education, her formative education was lovingly augmented by her art teacher mom, scout master dad and naturalist grandparents. This experiential childhood is responsible for her success in adult life, she is grateful for the chance to pay it forward.

Teacher Amanda, Co-Director

Teacher Amanda became a part of the Mountain School community in 2017 when her first daughter Lucia joined the Wednesday 2s class, followed by her youngest daughter, Sierra, in 2019. Amanda’s two daughters completed 2s, 3s, and 4/5s classes on their journey through Mountain School, growing into strong leaders and effective risk-takers. Over her five years as a parent, Amanda poured her heart into Mountain School, serving on the Parent Board of Directors in various roles each year. As elementary school called on her children, Amanda wasn’t ready to leave Mountain School. With ten years of early childhood development experience before having children, Amanda stepped into the role of Head Teacher in 2022.

Mountain schools’ values of nature, learning through play, and community are deeply rooted in Amanda’s foundation for teaching. She loves exploring the world around her and helping the youngest among us build a deep love and understanding for our earth. Growing up in South Central Florida, exploring nature was a different experience than in California. Tropical plants, loads of insects, and humidity. Her childhood is full of memories of exploring the beach, riding her bike, and running from fire ants! Amanda believes there is no better environment to raise children than in nature.

Amanda has been a California resident for thirteen years. She and her family settled into their forever home in the Santa Cruz Mountains in 2016 when her daughters were babies. She knew raising her children “on the mountain” would offer them more freedom and wonder than in the valley. In their mountain neighborhood, they regularly hike, bike, and explore the diverse ecosystem that gives them many learning opportunities. Her children’s curiosity and sense of wonder amaze and inspire her. She is excited to share the Mountain School magic that will bring out every child’s unique love of learning and adventure.

Amanda enjoys the beach, hiking, reading, photography, traveling, and spending time with her family and friends during her free time.

teacher Ashleigh

Ashleigh joined the Mountain School community in 1973 as a child starting in the 2's class. When she had her three sons, Austen (17), Teagan (15) and Tennyson (12) she was thrilled to share the Mountain School experience with them and see Mountain School from the parent perspective. When an opportunity arose to assist in the 4/5's, she jumped at the chance to return to Mountain School and experience it from the teacher perspective. Through all three unique experiences here, she has really loved and appreciated the unique nature and play based foundation that children and parents get to learn and grow from. The observation component is especially important to her as she still has her childhood observations and those of all of her children and found them to extremely informative and helpful in the years to come in elementary school.

Ashleigh was born and raised in Los Gatos. She spent a lot of time traveling to faraway, unique places around the globe experiencing different cultures and gleaning as much as she could from her travels. After graduating from LGHS, she went on to earn her Bachelor's degree in Nutrition Science from Cal Poly, SLO and her Master's Degree from SJSU. She became a Registered Dietitian and spent the next 15 years teaching in the Nutrition Department at SJSU, working at Kaiser and the WIC program as an RD where she discovered her passion working with prenatal and postpartum women and their babies and young children. After she met her husband, Trevor, they eventually had their three boys and Ashleigh dedicated her time to raising them and volunteering at their schools in the classroom and with the home and school clubs. Teachers were thrilled to have her as a parent in their classrooms because she brought along her Mountain School experiences and provided many nature based art projects like the real fish prints her children made in Teacher Marie's 4/5's class, the plant collages she did as a child in her 4's class and the many gardening and cooking project ideas that are an integral part of the Mountain School experience.

Ashleigh likes to say she doesn't go to work, she goes to play at LGSONS. The program is so unique in that it allows children to explore and learn in nature in a very organic way. Children have such freedom to be creative and imaginative in our space. Parents have the opportunity to observe their children interact with their classmates, other parents and the teachers. This observation provides a really lovely foundation for really getting to know your child and how they move about in the world. Being able to tune in to your child for a few hours a week and just really focus on them is such a priceless gift, especially nowadays with all the distractions life throws our way. As a teacher, she loves the opportunity to foster the space where children can grow and experience all that nature and our school provides.

Teacher MAGGIe

Teacher Maggie joined the Mountain School community in 2016 when her son Spencer started the Wed 2s. Her son Teddy joined 2 years later and both boys participated for 3 years each. As her boys experienced the loving teachers and playful free-range openness of the classes, she fell deeply in love with the natural environment, teachings and philosophies of the school.

Maggie is playful, kind, patient, deeply caring, and creative. She loves working with children as well as new parents and caregivers. She believes that providing the opportunity for children to slow down, play freely, and have a space of their own to watch and wonder is so important. She is a professionally trained chef and has worked in michelin-starred restaurants in the U.S. and France.  She enjoys using her skills to work as a food advocate, teaching children and young families about wholesome food and inspiring fun food related activities. 

Maggie grew up just a few hours north of Los Gatos, in Marin County. Her parents are environmental and agricultural activists who continue to inspire her. As a child, she sang in the San Francisco Girls Chorus, touring internationally, as well as singing with the SF Symphony Chorus and the SF Opera. She received her B.A. from Kenyon College in Ohio in French Area Studies with a concentration in Political Science. She worked as marketing director for the SF Girls Chorus before pursuing her Culinary Degree. 

Maggie lives in Los Gatos with her husband, two boys, three cats, two rabbits, 8 chickens, and two bee hives. Her favorite place is her vegetable garden in the early morning when the birds are all chattering. In her free time, Maggie loves connecting with nature…running trails in the mountains, watching the fog roll over the foothills, looking up at the expansive branches of a valley oak, and listening to the crickets sing in the evening.