Tara Hughes teaches a four-year-old inclusion preschool classroom at the Nye Early Childhood Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Before teaching, Hughes was a carpenter and welder. While managing the Santa Fe Opera stage crew, she taught college-age students stage operations and construction, prompting her passion for teaching.

Hughes taught in a private preschool in Santa Fe for two years, then moved to New York and Massachusetts, where she worked as an educational assistant (EA). Her experiences as an EA inspired her to earn a Master of Education in special education from New Mexico Highlands University. There, she student taught in an autism-specific prekindergarten classroom, igniting her drive to provide all students access to peers. Hughes staring working for Santa Fe Public Schools nine years ago as a highly structured special education teacher. She advocated for access to more peers in her classroom and championed the New Mexico FOCUS high-quality standards for inclusive practices.

Her greatest contributions and accomplishments in education are facilitating professional learning communities, supporting and coaching colleagues on positive behavior supports, evidence-based strategies and social-emotional curriculums. In 2020, she was featured in an Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center documentary series by the University of South Carolina on how the fields of early education and early childhood special education could successfully support preschoolers and their families during the COVID-19 pandemic through the use of technology. Her pedagogical precedence is to promote universal prekindergarten with a focus on ensuring equal access, including early intervention, social-emotional learning and inclusion for all young learners.