Karen Gass — or Teacher Karen, as she’s commonly known — has been teaching at Little Feet Cooperative Preschool for the past 20 years.
While much has changed over that time, one factor has not: The preschoolers themselves. Too young to be influenced much by iPads or the Internet like their older counterparts, they’ve stayed pretty much the same.
What has changed is the busyness of parents and the increase of two-income families.
“I think it’s harder and harder, as the years go on, to have a commitment for parents to do a co-op,” she said. “Years ago, it was not uncommon for more stay at home moms. Now, families are a lot more creative on how they can make it work, one, in Hood River, a pretty pricey community, and two, to be in the classroom and in their kids’ lives.”
Another change? More stay at home dads.
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“There are lots more stay at home dads,” she said. “Overall, we see more women, but there are a lot of dads involved. It’s refreshing and neat to see how involved the dads are.”
A day at the preschool — Gass teaches Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with Courtney Milliken teaching Tuesdays and Thursdays — looks something like this: The morning starts with circle time and includes songs, finger plays, special activities, a book and sharing. Next comes free play, snack and art, followed by a second circle time consisting of an enrichment activity.
“On Mondays, they do some sort of science activity, on Wednesday, they make a book of some sort — writing and art — and on Friday, it’s animal discovery (where) I introduce a new animal and talk about the habitat,” she said. The children also explore monthly themes; this month’s is transportation.
Gass has a dual degree from Michigan State, in education and recreational therapy. After graduating from college, she moved to Denver, Colo., where she worked with asthmatic children at National Jewish Hospital. To teach, she would have had to be recertified in Colorado and “at that time, I could make more money working at the hospital,” she said.
When she and husband John had their sons — Brandon, now 25, of Portland, and Sean, 23, of Hood River — she stayed at home with the children.
“My second child is special needs, so I wanted to be home with him,” she said.
The family moved to Hood River when the boys were 4 and 2, and she stayed home another year before deciding she’d like to work part time. And that’s when she found the position at Little Feet. Having worked with children her entire career, it was a perfect fit.
“It allowed me to have lots of time to still do things with my boys, especially my younger one,” she said. “Preschool worked out great for me, to be part of his life.”
Her enthusiasm for teaching is matched only by her enthusiasm for hiking and, with summer’s off, she’s been working on hiking the entire Pacific Crest Trail in sections with friend Betsy Frazier for the past six years. So far, they’ve hiked about two-thirds of the trail in yearly 3-week chunks.
“I love working with kids — after 20 years, I’m still not tired of it. I love my job,” she said. “Same thing with hiking — I love hiking, I love being out. With teaching, there’s a creative sense to it. Hiking is more endurance and saying ‘I’ve done it,’ an accomplishment.”
“They say that ‘life is about finding balance,’ and I am convinced that somehow these two passions feed off of and nurture each other, which gives her such an ability to be present in the moment in whatever endeavor she takes on,” said husband John. “The older I become, the more I appreciate just how rare it is to find this quality in a person.”
For their first route, the two women decided to keep closer to home, traveling from Crater Lake to Cascade Locks. Last year, they hiked the section from Mammoth Lake to Mt. Whitney. They’ve completed almost all of the Oregon and Washington parts of the trail, with the biggest portion left to go in Southern California.
The two are planning this year’s excursion based on snowfall.
“If we don’t get tons of snow in Washington, we’ve got Stevens Pass up to Canada, but if we get a lot of snow, we may just go Crater Lake south to wherever three weeks brings us,” Gass said.
“It’s amazing how many sections you can do in a week,” she added. “We run into a fair amount of section hikers when we’re out there — typically, section hikers are older and can’t take 5 months out of life, but want to be on the trail and accomplish a goal.
“We’ve had so much fun, the experiences and stuff we’ve seen — it’s well worth doing it. I don’t think I could do the whole through hiking and spend five months of my life on the trail, but section hiking is well worth the experience.”
Gass sees herself teaching and hiking for a long, long time.
“They both are the love of my life,” she said. “I really enjoy doing both. I can see myself not retiring and just working for a long, long time at the preschool. Same with hiking; as long as my legs can go and carry my body, I’ll be out there doing it.”
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