November 20, 2013

Dear CUSD Family,

With a sad heart I am letting you know of the loss of Sid Gurule. As you may know, Sid has taught French at CHS since 2002. He lost his battle with cancer on Friday afternoon, November 15, 2103.

Sid, who was only in his young 40’s, valiantly fought after being diagnosed and for the remainder of last year, was able to teach full day and keep his leadership of the French Club, including their yearly study trip, despite a rigorous treatment regimen.

This year, Sid attempted to continue teaching his IB/AP classes, taking a leave of his other sections. Sadly, he was not able to continue very long and had been on full leave since mid-September. His dedication to his students and his continued correspondence with them, even when on leave, is a testament to this exceptional teacher.

Sid had deep connections to staff and students and his loss is a tremendous blow. I know immediate plans are for a private, family memorial. CHS students and staff will plan a school wide celebration of his life for the near future. I will send out information on that ASAP.

Sid did make some specific requests and one was that no flowers be sent. He asked for those wanting to contribute to make donations to his favorite charities. I will also send out more information on those specifics ASAP.

For now, please keep Sid’s family, friends and his CHS family and students in your thoughts and prayers. Love those around you, be thankful for all that we have and be further resolved to fight cancer, in the many ways that you do, as it steals away those that we love way too soon.

Kevin Ward

Assistant Superintendent, Human Resources

Claremont Unified School District

Sid Gurulé was a beloved French teacher. His enthusiasm for teaching as well as his love of the language touched many CHS students over the years.

Sid Gurulé, a French teacher at Claremont High since 2002, passed on Nov. 15, 2013, peacefully surrounded by family and close friends. He had been battling colon and liver cancer for the last two some years.

Sid was born on 6 March 1970 in Montebello CA and spent a large part of his childhood in the local area. As a child and youth, Sid’s interests were baseball, hockey, tennis, languages and eating.

Sid graduated from Charter Oak High School in Covina in 1988. He began university and studied locally and outside of the country. He enjoyed success in tennis and competed in local tournaments. This led Sid on a path he hadn’t anticipated before.

He began teaching tennis for a local teaching professional and in 1990, became certified himself and began teaching tennis eventually running programs in the Country at Diamond Bar, the cities of Diamond Bar and Walnut and the City of Covina. He supervised and organized small group, large group and private lessons. He implemented some innovative classes including stroke of the week where each week, a particular stroke was focused on and enrollment was open.

His success teaching tennis at the local level led him to coaching as he coached both JV and Varsity levels at Charter Oak High from 1990 to 1995.

Sid’s passion for language also greatly influenced his life. Being trilingual by his teenage years speaking French as well as Spanish, he had opportunities to travel and teach tennis.

Eventually, although successful and content teaching tennis at the local level, Sid decided to undertake new challenges and began to work and study his other passion, languages. In 1996, Sid decided to scale down his tennis programs and began pursuing a degree in French and was hired by Claremont Unified School District as an Instructional Assistant in the ELD program, using his expertise in Spanish as an interpreter, translator and working with students in the classroom.

Unexpectedly, his fluency in French also served him during his years as an Instructional Assistant as he accompanied CHS French students on an exchange with a high school in Paris from 1997 to 1999 with more responsibility as the years went on.

By 2000, Sid had already graduated with a B.A. in French and decided to pursue his goal, a career in teaching. He was hired by Diamond Bar High and taught French there from 2000 to 2002.

Sid never cut ties with Claremont as he taught Summer School at CHS during his years at Diamond Bar. In 2002, he resigned from Diamond Bar and was hired by CHS in 2002 as an unexpected opening existed.

During his twelve years at CHS, Sid taught ELD, Spanish, Mythology and Short Story in Summer School and all levels of French. By 2006, Sid had taken over the French program at CHS.

He continued student travel to France using both student exchanges and commercial travel plans. He also organized a student trip for lower level students to Montreal, Canada. From 2006 to 2011, Sid led two student trips a year going to Montreal in the fall and Paris in the spring.

Sid’s teaching style involved immersion and novel grouping methods. During the years Sid led the French program, it grew from seven sections to ten or even eleven per year. CHS is one of the rare schools in the area with two full time French teachers thanks in large part to Sid. He extended the teaching of French outside of CHS offering classes through the Sycamore Enrichment Program and taught both French and Spanish through Claremont Adult School from 2004 to 2010. Sid organized presentations during International and Multi-Cultural Days at both Sycamore and Sumner schools from 2006 to 2012.

He also created a bridge class for students needing to complete French in three years for scheduling and other purposes called Le français dans le monde through the SLICE program. He taught this class from 2009 to 2012. This was an intensive prep class for students to pass a placement test to skip level three of French. He also taught French I and Spanish enrichment classes during his years with SLICE.

Sid’s teaching philosophy was to create a family atmosphere where students worked together in pairs and small groups to discover and expand on various aspects of the French language. He incorporated novel methods as well as ipods in his later years. He stressed the balance between form and content in student work with proficiency rather than mastery being the ultimate goal.

Sid was diagnosed with colon cancer in late 2011 and underwent treatments in early 2012. The cancer was controlled with regular exams and changes in lifestyle. During the Spring of 2013, he had complications and it was discovered the cancer had spread to the liver. Sid underwent treatments and was making good progress from the Spring to the end of August when complications began forcing him to make the difficult decision to leave the classroom in September.

Sid always had a positive outlook focusing on what he could do rather than what he couldn’t do. He will be remembered for his passion, devotion, energy and perseverance to the success of students and the growth of the French program at CHS.

He is survived by his wife Luz of six years, his parents and brother.

A private funeral mass for family and close friends was held at St. Louise Church in Covina on December 3. Sid requested that to honor him, donations of time and or money to local animal shelters or the Humane Society in his name would be most appreciated to reflect his affinity for cats. CHS will be holding a Memorial Service for Sid on Monday, Dec. 23rd at 11 AM. This is a public service open to all. The service will take place in the large gym.

~ thewolfpacket.org