Staff

Meet Teacher/Director Julie Laurin of the Rose Room

Julie is the teacher for our Mixed Age preschool class. She also serves as the Director, overseeing curriculum planning and our parent teacher training.  

Julie has spent the last 6 years as a Preschool Teacher for THPRD.  She loves going to concerts and spending time outdoors with her family.  She has 1 teenage daughter at home, her middle son serves in the US Army, and her oldest son attends college in California. Julie has a cat named Rocket and a dog named Barley. Julie loves watching her preschoolers learn by leaps and bounds.  

Her favorite quote is “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” –Benjamin Franklin

Julie’s teaching philosophy is based on working together as a team and becoming a family in the same community.  “I love that I have had the opportunity to build relationships with my students and their parents. I’ve seen them in my neighborhood when I’m out walking the dog or headed to the park with my kids. I feel like I was raised to never ask for help and I want to start a new trend from the beginning of a child’s life. I encourage them to ask for help and seek out others who need help.”

Meet Mrs.Cassie Pham of the Azaela Room

Cassie Pham is the teacher for our Kindergarten class. She earned her Master’s degree in Education at Concordia University, with an endorsement in Reading Intervention. Cassie has experience as a substitute teacher with ESS, serving many early childhood and elementary classrooms. Prior to this, she was a licensed family child care provider for five years. Cassie and her husband have a 5-year-old daughter who attends the Rose Room and a 9-year-old son. They also have two dogs named Meeka and Teddy. Cassie enjoys being outside, hiking, and going on camping trips with her family. She also likes to relax with a puzzle or a good book. Cassie loves working in a small community in which she can grow meaningful relationships with the students and their families. She believes that all students can be successful and have unique strengths to contribute to the classroom community.  

Her favorite quote is, “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” -William Butler Yeats

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Elizabeth has lived in Oregon her whole life and enjoys everything the state has to offer, from coast to mountains to deserts. She enjoys camping and taking in the wonder of nature with her 4-year-old son, Emerson and dreams of taking him on traveling adventures. She also enjoys reading, crafts, baking, caring for her houseplants, and snuggling with her three cats, Meeko, Mjolnir, and Stormy.

Elizabeth has always known she wanted to work with young children – at first leaning towards counseling, but realizing her natural enjoyment of teaching, she veered toward early childhood education. Elizabeth has an educational background in psychology and development as well as experience in management of early childhood school programs and teaching of toddler and preschool classrooms.

Elizabeth strongly believes in respecting even the youngest of children as unique individuals and creating an emergent curriculum based on the interests of her class. She believes that every child has a natural love of learning that should be nurtured by following their lead. She strives to create an environment in which each child can thrive and to encourage them on a path of kindness, awareness, and confidence in their own intrinsic potential.