By Rebecca Miller ’13, Contributor.

This year, Cincinnati Country Day School welcomes two new teachers in the Middle and Upper Schools. Both have roots here in Greater Cincinnati, and both say they are very excited about being able to be part of the community here at CCDS.

Mrs. Angela Suarez will be joining the Upper School Modern Language Department, this year teaching Spanish II, Honors Spanish II, and Spanish III. She is originally from Northern Kentucky, but has been living in Los Angeles for 10 years. She originally moved there to go to UCLA for graduate school, but stayed in the area after graduating with her MA in

Hispanic Languages and Literature, teaching Spanish at both UCLA and Pepperdine University, as well as at Wildwood, a private secondary school in west Los Angeles.

Mrs. Suarez moved to Cincinnati with her husband to raise their two sons, Anthony and Shawn. She found Cincinnati Country Day School online and “thought it was a perfect place to teach at due to [its] reputation for having a strong academic program for the students and the personal community feel within the school.” She claims that “The more [she and her family] learned about CCDS, the more excited [they] all became about moving here.”

Mrs. Suarez said she is excited to begin to work with students in the classroom and “getting them excited about learning Spanish and learning about the culture.” She herself did not start learning Spanish until her senior year of high school, but “once [she] found [her] connection to the language and Spanish-speaking people, [her] passion took off.” She hopes to “reach out to students and help them find what motivates them about learning a foreign language.”

Ms. Brittany Woods will be joining the Middle School as a seventh grade cultural

studies teacher. A 2004 graduate of Cincinnati Country Day School, when she received her M.Ed. she knew that “[CCDS] was the type of school that [she] wanted to work in. The faculty, staff and students are so welcoming.” She says she has always loved “how small [CCDS] is and how nice it is to feel like [part of] one big family.”

In addition to teaching in the Middle School, Ms. Woods will also be advising the Upper School’s Black Cultural Workshop (BCW). An athlete herself during her time at CCDS, she will be continuing as a coach. She will coach Middle and Upper School Girls’ Soccer, Middle School Girls’ Basketball, and both Middle and Upper School Track Teams.

Ms. Woods says she is looking forward to “learning as much as [she] can from an amazing group of Middle School teachers.” She also hopes to “bring in new ideas and material to the Middle School. [She’s] excited to begin another year at CCDS—on the other side of the desk!”