Hayley Rubin has been a member of the HIES community for eight years, where she teaches sixth- and seventh-grade Spanish and serves as the Middle School multicultural affairs coordinator. She has also been the faculty advisor for Girl Talk since 2018, a club that fosters mentorship and female friendships between Upper School and Middle School students.

Ms. Rubin earned both her undergraduate and master’s degrees from Washington University in St. Louis. She majored in Latin American Studies and Spanish with a minor in political science before pursuing a master’s in K-12 World Language Education. While completing her graduate studies, she was named Outstanding Future Foreign Language Teacher of the Year by the Foreign Language Association of Missouri.

With dual roles at HIES, no two weeks look exactly the same for Ms. Rubin. She teaches three sections of sixth-grade Spanish and one section of seventh-grade beginners' Spanish while also leading initiatives that celebrate cultural diversity. Whether she’s coordinating Town Hall discussions with Upper School students, organizing advisory trivia competitions or decorating spaces to highlight heritage months, her passion for building cultural awareness is woven into daily life at HIES.

"My favorite thing about teaching, especially in Middle School, is seeing my students in the stage of life where they’re figuring out who they want to be," Ms. Rubin said. " they’re starting to have a say in who they are and what matters to them for the first time, and I love watching them decide who that is."

A lifelong Atlantan, Ms. Rubin left the city for college and graduate school before returning home. She and her husband, Nate, have a unique love story, meeting in kindergarten before reconnecting nearly 20 years later. They married in 2023. Outside of the classroom, Ms. Rubin is a trivia enthusiast and leads the Middle School’s Trivia Club. She’s even training to take the Jeopardy! test for the first time this spring.