New Math teacher Mr. Matt Petrich really got the full Mount Carmel experience when he took over classes the week of September 20. That is because the next week was Homecoming Week for the students.

“It’s been a crazy introduction,” Mr. Petrich said. He is teaching juniors and seniors this year.

Mr. Petrich has previously taught at St. Rita of Cascia High School, a school in California, and a school internationally, and he attended a Jesuit High School in Carmichael, California. He attended Santa Clara University in California where he played water polo and later received Master’s Degree. After graduating he volunteered to go to Tanzania, a country in East Africa known for its vast wilderness, where he would live for three years while teaching high school and participating in a neighborhood incubation program there.

Mr. Petrich is also into Fantasy Baseball, board games, and the outdoors. In the past he has taught Theology teacher, and faith has a big impact on his life, so much so that he attended the Jesuit novitiate near Los Angeles for three years discerning for the priesthood.

Not only is Mr. Petrich a classroom teacher, but he is also a husband and a father. He and his wife have been married for two years now and have a six-month-old daughter named Bernice, whom they call Bernie.

One thing he would like for parents and students to know is his reason for teaching. “I want to empower young people through education,” he says. “Education is a chance to have a good job, but mostly a chance at freedom.”

Mr. Petrich believes that people can start to find enjoyment in life with an education. “Be positive and find ways to find a positive mindset” is a message that Mr. Petrich wants and tries to leave with his students after each and every class period.

Teaching is not the only outreach Mr. Petrich has done; he has also worked with the prison population and children in juvenile detention. He mentored at Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Detention Center in Los Angeles and did meditation groups with women at Dublin Federal Prison in Dublin, California.

But teaching high school students is where Mr. Petrich wants to be. “The students make it fun,” he says. Getting used to the switch from Saint Rita over to Mount Carmel, getting adjusted to teaching math, and learning his class schedule may not be easy at first, but as Men of Carmel always do we care to struggle and thrive to get done what needs to be done, and Mr. Petrich seems like he will fit into that category nicely.