Our Team

Director, Youth Mentor/Ages 7-15

Rachael Munn

Rachael (she/hers) cannot remember a time when she didn't hear the call of the outdoors. Born in Dubuque, Iowa, Rachael spent much of her childhood exploring northeast Iowa on camping and canoe trips and developed a love for the region. Some of her earliest memories include making mud pies,  jumping in leaf piles, building snow forts, and exploring the Mississippi in her dad's fishing boat. Her family's enthusiasm for outdoor adventures helped instill in her a deep connection to, and sense of comfort with the natural world - connections which continue to deepen and grow in her adventures as a Red Oak Mentor. 

Prior to her family's move to Decorah in 2022, Rachael spent nearly a decade working as a Special Education teacher in the Iowa City Public Schools. While she no longer teaches in the public schools, her experience as a special education teacher helped her develop a strong interest in alternative education and experiential learning. Rachael considers herself a life-long learner and is deeply committed to helping others engage in learning that is inspired by curiosity and discovery. Rachael is a gardener, a plant and animal lover, and a mother of two. She is passionate about outdoor learning and loves to experience the changes of seasons with friends at Red Oak.

Alayna Sobieniak

Growing up on a large freshwater lake meant Alayna’s childhood days were spent swimming, running, fishing, building forts and shelters, ice skating, sledding and enjoying all weather. A particularly memorable experience was the time she and her siblings built a shelter along the beach in the springtime where they built fires, made tea from foraged goods, and played “Survivor” for days on end. These experiences grounded a firm connection to the land and nature that has lasted her entire life.

From an early age she also knew she had a strong connection with young children. These passions combined while she studied Early Childhood Development at Northern Michigan University on the shores of Lake Superior. She has spent the last 15 years working in a variety of settings including forest schools, childcare centers, Waldorf schools, and nature preschools. Along with many hours of continuing education she has completed her Nature Based Teacher Certification from the Association of Nature-Based Education, her 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training from Boreal Bliss and her Children’s Yoga Teacher Certification. She truly believes her life’s work is support our youngest people in their connection to nature and mindfulness.

When she is not teaching you can find her enjoying time with her own two children, traveling, fly fishing, cooking, and constantly seeking new ways to connect with the land.

Sophie Rog

Sophie Rog was born and raised outside of Decorah Iowa where she has returned after a decade living in rural New Mexico. Sophie has a background in dance, qigong, Action Theatre and Pilates and loves all things kinesthetic–-the deliciousness of existing in a moving, feeling body is what lights her up day after day. She is a massage therapist with a diploma in massage therapy from New Mexico Academy for the Healing Arts, and a Medical Qigong practitioner. The home in which she grew up was filled with singing and music, and she has continued to make music throughout her life–-eventually studying and performing the singing traditions of the Balkans and Eastern Europe which she continues today. She is passionate about the embodied and expressive elements of singing and how using our voices in different ways can connect us to ourselves, to each other and to new ways of understanding and feeling.

In NM she was introduced to micaceous clay pottery, a traditional Apache and Pueblo craft for which the clay is dug from the local mountains and hand-built into gorgeous and useful cookware. The expanses of beautiful wild land in NM taught her many lessons which she keeps nestled close to her heart. She continues to make–-and cook in!–-these pots, and is excited to be experimenting with making small pieces from local clays. 

Among the many blessings of being back in this region is teaching for Red Oak Outdoor School, where she gets to bring together her love for connecting with people and the natural world, crafting, movement, and vocal expression. She is grateful for all she continues to learn from the land, her co-workers, and the kids.

Ingrid Rotto grew up in the woods of Northeast Iowa. As a child she loved spending endless hours outside, watching birds and learning their songs, creating potions from flowers and mud, collecting fossils and rocks, and building forts and fairy houses. This love for the natural world has persisted through her life. She has spent the last nine years in Vermont where she studied in the clinical herbalist program at Vermont Center for Integrated Herbalism and pursued her interests in small-scale, regenerative farming and local food systems. Ingrid has recently returned home to Decorah bringing with her passion for local food, sustainable farming, gardening, holistic health, and gratitude for being close to family and community.

Before moving to VT, Ingrid studied early childhood development at Cornell College with a particular interest in Reggio Emilia and Waldorf approaches to education. She graduated with a degree in Art Integration in Early Childhood Education as well as Studio Art. Ingrid believes wholeheartedly in nurturing the innate curiosity that children bring to the world and values the way experiential learning out on the land inspires confidence, builds integrity and skills, encourages play, and supports development. In her work at Red Oak, Ingrid hopes to offer a warm and grounding presence, supporting children in establishing a foundational relationship with the natural world while encouraging their individual and relational development. Ingrid’s dream out of college was to start a school on her own working farm someday and while those goals have morphed over time, it is truly a dream come true to be working with Red Oak.

Administrative Assistant, Youth Mentor/Ages 5-6

Ingrid Rotto

Klaus grew up in NW Iowa, and was instilled with a strong love for the natural world through his rural agricultural upbringing and the stories passed down by his family, telling of the former grand-wild-abundance of the tallgrass prairie. He took an early interest in the lifeways of hunter-gatherer cultures and was and continues to be grounded through the practices of hunting, trapping, foraging and herbalism. 

Leaving home, Klaus strengthened his connection to nature while completing a degree in Natural Resource Stewardship at Sterling College in VT. The insights from lessons in cultural and wildlife ecology, natural history (especially of the Ice Age), wilderness expedition skills, and the philosophies of wilderness spurred him on to various wild and inspiring places. In striving to connect to something bigger than himself, he found meaningful work in wildlife research, wilderness therapy for teens, and regenerative agriculture. He has a particular fondness and heart-felt connection to the deserts of the Southwest.

After about 10 years away from the midwest, Klaus came to Decorah to be closer to family and to find the joys that only come through depth of connection to a place through time. He recently worked as a bird surveyor for the Iowa DNR but spends an increasing amount of time focussed on creating a homestead and natural lifestyle in the country with his wife Emily. He feels great joy in this chance to share with the next generation his love for wild nature and hopes that they may remember it as their home.

Kevin grew up in the flat fields of northwest Iowa, where a wide horizon and long sight lines taught him how to look far and dream into the distance. The open landscape made it easy to imagine what might await beyond the oceans of crops, awakening a wonder which planted a question in his heart, “What in the world is out there?”

After attending the University of Iowa, Kevin ventured into urban jungles of every sort to find out. In Birmingham, he discovered theater and a passion for leaning into his limits. In Chicago, he brought laughter to improv stages and learned to adapt within the wilds of metropolitan life. In Hollywood, he tapped into a love for teaching actors. It was there that he was first wowed by mindfulness meditation, and the question he’d carried since childhood matured into, “What in the world is in here?”

For fifteen years he’s cultivated a mindfulness practice focused on three components - radical acceptance, loving kindness, and beginner’s mind. While teaching at Anthony Meindl’s Actor Workshop and facilitating his online course, The Mindful Maker, these tools have helped him hold space for students. Nothing has rivaled the fulfillment he’s known in witnessing a student prove to themself they’re brave and safe enough to reach out to their truest nature.

Kevin also pours his practice into writing poetry, woodworking, and being an uncle to eight nieces and nephews who share his fondness for crafting and camping.

In autumn of 2025, Iowa called Kevin home. Shaped by experience and softened through reflection, he’s grateful to stand with the Red Oak community and offer all he’s gathered on his travels to young explorers as they ask the questions alive inside their own adventurous hearts.

Amy is a career artist, a homeschooling mother of three grown sons, and a teacher of art, dance, and song at Youth Initiative High School. As a child, Amy had minimal experiences feeling at home in nature and longed for more. When she became a mother, she knew that connection to the natural world was essential for the full development of her sons and so involved them in deep nature connection experiences wherever she could. As she tended to their journeys she found that she also tended her own relationship with wild nature, a relationship that continues to develop today. She also believes deeply in the healing power of community singing—an age-old form of group singing that uplifts all voices with the goal of connection and belonging—and brings it to as many corners of her life and work as she can. Learning about and caring for each other in community and making art of our voices, hands and hearts is at the core of Amy’s life. 

Amy is a guide for the Viroqua, WI Youth Initiative High School Expedition Curriculum where she backpacks and canoes in the Driftless with teens, prioritizing the personal and cultural growth of each group and learning alongside them. She is continually awed by the gifts that backcountry experiences have to offer. She strives to make space for teens to blossom in their own emotional intelligence, showing up for themselves and the world from a heart-centered, empowered place. She is deeply grateful for her work and her life’s journey that have brought her so many opportunities to learn in community and help to build the world she wants to live in.