Ryan Ostrander has been working in the Santa Barbara Unified school district for several years. However, this is his first year teaching U.S. History and Innovate classes at Dos Pueblos High School.
“I was at Santa Barbara High School for the last three years,” Ostrander said. “Enrollment was up … and [DP] needed more teachers … so I transferred here from SBHS.”
Ostrander grew up in a small town called Silent Springs, located in Arkansas. He attended Messiah University in Pennsylvania and went on to continue his education in California where he received his teaching credential.
While he’s only taught at DPHS for one semester, Ostrander believes that there is a lot of community involvement at the school.
“There’s a lot of family buy-in [support],” he said. “From the teacher’s side, the school is really well run; … there’s a lot of involvement and collaboration for the teachers, which is more than I’ve had at any other high school.”
While Ostrander said he loves teaching, he hadn’t always planned on this career.
“I didn’t think I wanted to be a teacher,” Ostrander said. “Then I started substitute teaching, to make money on the side, and realized I really liked being in the classroom.”
Throughout high school, Ostrander enjoyed the subject of history and said he liked to analyze the reasoning behind human behavior.
“I love teaching social studies and history as a subject, because I find it fascinating to try to understand why people made the decisions they made in the past,” he said. “I feel like [history] helps you learn to understand and empathize with humans.”
His passion for history also extended to other subjects, such as math. In college, Ostrander initially majored in business, before switching to history.
“My undergraduate degree was in history, business minor, and English teaching minor,” he said. “Then I got my teaching credential at Azusa Pacific, down in the LA area.”
Outside of teaching, Ostrander said he enjoys mountain biking and playing soccer.
“I have two kids, so I don’t get out as much as I used to,” Ostrander said. “I used to ride all the trails out in the backcountry, Royal Boroughs trail to Quest Canyon. I really like the more aggressive downhill trails going through the Mesa jumps.”
