“Oh, I knew when I was young I wanted to be a teacher. I was always gifted to tell people what to do and then they’d actually do it,” joked Mr. Stratford.

Stratford has been teaching for a whooping  28 years. Fifteen years in his home state Montana and 13 years here in California. Stratford is from the big sky state, Montana. He’s an alumni of Billings Senior High School and graduated from Montana State University with a bachelors and masters degree in Education. He even took post-graduate classes at Stanford University. When we hear “Stanford” it’s pretty impressing and must I say, Mr. Stratford is pretty impressive.

“Creative and Performing Arts is where you can express yourself. I’ve always been interested in acting and performing. Speech is expressing yourself and I admire that.”

Stratford has always found a passion in teaching English. He’s always loved literature and was raised on great literature and was always surrounded with it. Stratford admires the fantastic works of Shakespeare.

His advice to us? “Follow things you love to do. Follow your passions, we need people with passion.”

Mr. Stratford teaches freshmen, sophomores, juniors AND seniors in English and Speech and Debate.