Annette Benedetti - Owner/Director
Annette has over 10 years
experience working with children and their families. After earning her B.S. in Psychology in 1997, she
began working as a counselor for children with special needs. Later in her career, she began applying the
knowledge and skills she had gained to teaching preschoolers. She quickly became a lead teacher and eventually
was hired, by a nonprofit organization out of Seattle, to create a unique, therapeutic preschool curriculum for 3 to 6 year
olds with varying special needs. After having her first daughter in 2002 Annette returned to work as the
interim director/assistant director for a preschool and before and after school program in Seattle, and is now looking forward
to having the opportunity to offer a rich and active preschool program for local children and their families.
Annette has been studying yoga for over 5 years and has become a serious student of Iyengar yoga in the last year and
a half. When she is not chasing her two wonderful daughters around you can almost always find her on her
mat.
James Garrett - Owner/Director/Teacher
James is the owner, administrator, teacher, and cartaker of The Village Preschool. James has also owned
and worked in a daycare for over 4 years while living in Portland before his ventures in real estate and construction management.
He is a proud father with a deep love for the great outdoors and loves to inspire children by sharing his
knowledge of the natural world with them. James is also a talented carpenter having put his skills to
work by opening Abacus Fine Carpentry In Seattle, Wa. and later lending a hand to Extreme Makeover, Home Edition. He
now enjoys time in the shop by making children’s furniture in his spare time.
Alana James - Lead Teacher
Alana has been working with children for over six years. She has enjoyed
teaching as far back as she can remember. She often recruited (or insisted) her little brothers as practice growing up. They had to listen as she rambled on and on
instructing them on their A, B, C’s and numbers. She has always enjoyed working with people in general which started her career towards her nursing degree.
Her career path changed
after volunteering in her daughter’s kindergarten classroom. She realized teaching was her passion!
She worked in a non-profit childcare center
with children ages 2-12 for almost four years. Alana was the Lead Teacher /Assistant Director. She began writing her own curriculum for the
school and found she absolutely
loved it! From there she eventually made her way to The Village Preschool. She has worked here for over two years. She shares the children’s
enthusiasm and willingness to try new things, always searching for new ideas and adventures. She believes in looking at each child as an
individual with personal
needs and truly believes parent teacher relationships are the key to a child’s success.
Janna Paulson- Teacher
Janna got her start in childcare at an early age by enthusiastically
bossing around her little sister, a job she took very seriously. She later worked as a nanny for five
years and volunteered extensively with children and youth. She finds children completely fascinating
and loves to see them learn about our wonderful planet and its cultures, sciences, and mysteries. Janna's
passion is travel, and in 2009 she had the extraordinary opportunity to live in Afghanistan, where she
taught English to school-aged Afghan girls. She hopes to continue working with children overseas in the future.
