This is Rios’ first year as a student teacher, and he teaches history.

Can you tell me a little about yourself?

“My name is Daniel Rios. I am a hard working teacher who loves to inspire and instill wellness in others, and I’m a basketball coach.”

Why and when did you decide to work at Granite Bay High School?

“I had a good friend who was a coach here at Granite Bay and he asked me to come help join the boys coach of the boys basketball program. That’s how I started coaching here first, and then I decided to become a teacher. Then because of my connections with coaching, I was able to kind of get my end through coaching and teaching.”

What made you decide to teach history?

“I think history is such an interesting topic. There’s so much to know about it that influences our world today. My favorite part of history is American history, like World War One or World War Two. The war, military history aspect of our history is the coolest part to me.”

What is something you’d like your students to know about you or something you want them to know before they come to your class?

“I care about their lives and their interests outside of my class. I want them to succeed in whatever it is that they’re doing. I want them to find a passion outside of school or find a passion in general, and I want them to be able to feel that I want that for them.”

What is one thing you’d like to say to the readers?

“Lift heavy weight”

Mr. Cuda has been teaching for 20 years, and he teaches Social Ethics, PE, and freshman Health.

Mrs. Cuda has been teaching for 22 years, and she teaches math.

Can you tell me a little about yourself?

Mr. Cuda: “I’ve been teaching for 20 years, my first year, Granite Bay High School, obviously. My wife and I both feel very fortunate to have gotten jobs here last spring. We’re just thrilled to be here. Both of our kids are in the school district now and yeah, just really excited to be here.”

Mrs. Cuda: “I’ve been teaching for 22 years and I started out doing special effects for movies and commercials. I decided I didn’t want to work in a cubicle for 10 hours a day, and decided to get my Master’s in math because I thought I wanted to teach Junior College. I taught at Santa Monica High School in Santa Monica College for a little while, while I was teaching at Santa Monica High School, but decided that I really just liked working with high school kids better.”

Why and when did you decide to work at Granite Bay High School?

Mr. Cuda: “Well, my wife is from Sacramento. Ultimately when we got married, and had our kids, we ended up deciding ‘okay, we’re gonna move up to the Sacramento area.’ So we ended up getting jobs at McClatchy. I was running a football program down there and she was the math department chair and stuff. But ultimately, we just decided that it wasn’t where we wanted our kids to go to school, and after a lot of research, we decided that you just can’t beat the schools up here. It just offered everything that we were looking for.”

Mrs. Cuda: “I started my career in Santa Monica. But when my husband and I had kids, we decided to move to Sacramento. When they started attending schools in Sacramento, we wanted better schools for our kids and Granite Bay has the best schools, so we came here.”

What made you decide to teach social science, PE, and health?

Mr. Cuda: “I interviewed for a social studies position and to be honest with you, I think it kind of came down to the fact that there were two people that they were looking to hire and I also had a PE credential so I had some other things that I could potentially do as well. I think a lot of it is you know, it was just ‘hey, let’s get in and get going and get on campus’.I think we all kind of just created a schedule. We’ll kind of see where it goes from there.”

Mrs. Cuda: “I have always loved math. I actually got a degree in computer science, with math as my minor, but I decided that I ended up liking math better. So that’s when I got my master’s in math – I was teaching high school during that.”

What is it that intrigues you in math?

Mrs. Cuda: I like making math relevant and interesting to kids, I do have experience in working in another field where we used math a lot for special effects in TV and commercials. I like making connections with kids through math in the real world.

What is something you’d like your students to know about you or something you want them to know before they come to your class?

Mr. Cuda: “This is way more than a job to me – Granite Bay is my home. It’s where I’m raising my children. It’s the spot on the map that my wife and I chose to live in. I think that’s the main thing that I want my students to know is that I’m one of them. This community is my community as well. That’s why I’m so excited about teaching kids.

Mrs. Cuda: “My family and I are really invested in this community and this school. Our kids will come here someday, so we want to contribute and make Granite Bay High School the best that we can.”

This is around Cattolico’s 25th year teaching, and she teaches ELD (English Language Development) and english.

Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?
¨I grew up in the East Bay in a town called Hayward which is right in between San Jose and Oakland. I was the youngest child of three kids in my family -I grew up in a pretty traditional Filipino American household. We lived with my grandmother, my mom’s a nurse, my dad’s an engineer, and so just kind of the stereotypical professions for people who immigrated from the Philippines in the 1960s. We had a pretty happy childhood in the 80s and 90s growing up.”

Why and when did you decide to work at Granite Bay High School?
“I’ve been a teacher for a long time, so about 20-something years. My family and I moved from Sac county to Placer County about four years ago and the commute was going to be too arduous for me. So I got a job up here. I was working at Rocklin High School, teaching English and ELD and just this last spring, had the opportunity to come over to this district, which is my own community. It’s where I’m raising my children. I have three boys of my own, and it’s just been really nice to be able to kind of all be in the same area, rooting for the same schools and rowing the boat in the same direction.”

What made you decide to teach ELD and English?
“I enjoy teaching students from all over, and we focus on language and literature. I think that language and being able to have a skill with English is a great equalizer in our society, because it is the language of commerce and professions. So for students – especially students who are immigrating from other countries and have other home languages – the ability to master English is a determinant of what types of jobs are going to be accessible to them and what life they can make for themselves, based on their livelihoods.”

What is something you’d like your students to know about you or something you want them to know before they come to your class?
“I think that students should know that it’s their educational processes, a continuum that every single experience that they have, that helps them to develop as writers and readers and thinkers, and that we don’t expect students to be perfect or to come prepared with all the skills that we want them to master by the end of the year. If it’s a continuum, then we’re all kind of on this directional path to improve. Every kind of activity that your teachers ask you to do, are really just meant to improve your skills so that you can gain mastery and proficiency and we’ll always be willing to help meet you where you are so that you can be successful.”

Is there anything else you’d like the readers to know about you?
“I’m just excited to be here. I think that this is an awesome school with a great supportive school culture, a lot of offerings for students to develop their own personal skills and also help them to figure out what it is that they want to do post-secondary school.

This is Beltrami’s 12th year teaching, and he teaches math.

Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?
“I like to go outdoors, rock climbing, camping and hiking. I like working on cars, and I really like taking them apart – putting them back together isn’t as fun. It’s really fun. I have 9-10 cars right now, and I try to drive a different one to school every day.

Why and when did you decide to work at Granite Bay High School?
“I was thinking about working for Granite Bay High School for a couple years. But this is my first year working here. I was working at another school in the area that wasn’t as awesome as I thought it was. I like the culture here, I like the academic focus, I really love the math department. It’s just like a better place.

What made you decide to teach math/work in the math department?
“I like the way that they work together, the way that they’re all super friendly and very inviting, very helpful, that sense of collaboration. Plus, they’re, they’re math nerds, which I mean in a very good way. You know, it’s hard to come by other teachers who love what they teach.”

What is it that intrigues you in math?
“I really like teaching any math, I’ve taught from pre algebra for high school kids who really, really struggle in classes like algebra one, all the way up to teaching multivariable calculus. So I don’t really have a special content that I like teaching or a particular class within math, because there’s really interesting patterns and really interesting stuff that happens at all the different levels. So it’s really cool seeing kids having it makes sense to them. Like they smile and get happy.

What is something you’d like your students to know about you or something you want them to know before they come to your class?
“Do the best that you can! I think that’s all we can expect out of people is just do the best that you can and ask for help if you need help with something.”