Señor Ruiz

I was born in a small town in New Mexico, moved to Colorado as a 4th grader, but by my 6th grade year, was living here in Casper.  After graduating from Kelly Walsh High School, I spent two years at Casper College pursuing a major in electrical engineering.  After moving on to the University of Wyoming, I switched majors to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish. I moved to Phoenix, Arizona where I completed a Master's Degree in Education. For ten years, I worked as a Spanish teacher in Lakewood, Colorado and served in curriculum, diversity, and assessment projects throughout my time there. I have been an advocate for collaboration among world language teachers by regularly presenting my ideas at state, regional, and national conferences in addition to being a workshop presenter and keynote speaker around the nation. I have received “Best of Colorado” awards for two different presentations at the state level. In 2014, I was selected Colorado World Language Teacher of the Year by the Colorado Congress of Foreign Language Teachers and was a candidate for Regional Teacher of the Year at the Southwest Conference on Language Teaching. I moved back to Casper to teach here at CY in July of 2014. Since then, I have presented at several world language conferences on topics such as national world language standards and improving student engagement. I have been a member of our district's curriculum development committee and on the state's World Language Standards committee and Seal of Biliteracy committee. In 2023, I was selected as the Wyoming World Language Teacher of the Year by the Wyoming Association of Language Teachers.  I currently live five minutes from school with my wife and two sons.