Gio Ramirez

In his period 4 Math 2 class, Mr. Rocha goes over the bell ringer with his students giving them their opportunity to check their answers.

No matter where you find yourself, there are always life-changing opportunities waiting for you. In the case of math teacher Jesus Rocha, volunteering to assist as a teacher led to a completely new career path. Despite still working for his teaching credentials, he is currently co-teaching with math teacher Pedro Ramirez. 

Rocha was born and raised in North County. Right after graduating from high school, he majored in computer science while studying at San Jose State, where he earned his associates degree. At the time, he had no interest in getting into the education field. “I never thought I was going to be a teacher, I just landed that by mistake,” he said. 

When he was working as a financial advisor helping others with their financial goals, he got the opportunity to volunteer to help out a teacher at CSUMB through having to do service learning. “From all of the options, I thought that helping a teacher would be the funnest, so I signed up,” he said. This is where he realized how much he enjoyed teaching and being around the youth. “I saw that [teaching] brought me joy, made me happy every time I was with the kids, so that was what really lightened up my spark to become a teacher, by volunteering.” Eventually, this helped him decide to pursue a degree in education instead. 

Although this wasn’t simple as it seems, there were many challenges getting to where he currently is. This was an extremely hard 18-year process for him; he had to juggle his personal life, a job, and school. At the time he decided he wanted to pursue his career in the education field was around the time he got engaged. “We couldn’t afford for both of us to go to school at the same time, so at that time I sorta sacrificed myself, let my wife continue her career,” Rocha said. 

Right after his wife finished college, they had two kids he now had to raise which became his number one priority. “My day consisted of getting up at 6 in the morning, getting the kids ready to go to school, I would go to work, from work I would go straight to school, probably get out at 7 to 8 at night. From there I had dinner and made sure the kids did their homework, making sure the kids got taken care of and I would do my homework at around 10-11 at night and finishing up at  2 to 3 in the morning.” 

He is very community oriented which is why he decided to come to Alisal. “I get to live what the kids are living through so for me it was a little choice, I wanted to be part of the community I am in,” he said.  “I didn’t want to go out and teach at some random school I was never part of when this is my community.” Rocha’s favorite thing about Alisal is the overall environment. He enjoys time with the students and time with the adults. He sees this as an opportunity to grow as a person, which to him is a lot of fun.

Being in a new environment is scary, but Rocha has Ramirez, someone he can rely on and the person he is currently co-teaching with. He sees Ramirez as family.  “He is my mentor, he is like a brother, he gives me honest feedback, he allows me to grow, so for me he is like my big brother,” Rocha said. 

Rocha’s experience began when Ramirez was asked if he would allow someone to co-teach alongside him. “I attended CSUMB to do my teacher credential program,” Ramirez said. “They reached out to me last year to see if I wanted to be a co-teacher and allow someone to come into my classroom to get teaching experience. I said yes and I was assigned Mr. Rocha.”

Rocha teaches Math 2 in Ramirez’s third and fourth periods. At  the end of the day, Ramirez gives him critiques and gives him feedback on how he lectured that day. Being new to all of this, Rocha tends to overwhelm himself at times, but Ramirez gives him advice on the amount of responsibilities he takes on. Having two teachers, their students highly benefit from this. “So the students get that experience, that core the area everyone needs and then they get the excitement of a new teacher, thinking of new ideas that do not necessarily fit with the curriculum of the school and once you combine them it really benefits the kids,” Rocha said.

According to Ramirez, Rocha started with a lot of enthusiasm and willingness to try out new things. He was not shy about the newer environment but instead was open to experimenting new things. “In all honesty, he could have led his own classroom and still be doing fine. I have seen him grow as an educator as he continues to teach my 3rd and 4th period,” Ramirez said.  “Any school would be lucky to get him as a math teacher, but my hope is that he gets to stay at Alisal and continue to teach.”

Outside of school, he has two very exciting hobbies which are skydiving and piloting. He is a certified pilot. As scary as skydiving seems, he’s been doing it for many years. “As soon as you see the bottom you’ll feel nothing but as soon as you let go, you feel that rush in your stomach,” he said. 

He has many plans for the future, his goal as a teacher is to win the national teacher award. As for his personal goal, it is to own his own business, specifically in real estate. “I do want to win the national teacher award, go visit the President, take a couple teachers with me,” Rocha said. He also hopes to eventually get hired as a full time teacher. “I want to stay at Alisal High School but at this time it’s uncertain if I can stay.”