I love what I do, you know, and that’s why I continue doing it. I enjoy it. I love the connection with the kids. I love knowing that we can influence and we touch somebody’s life, at least one a day, so we’re making a big difference.
There’s no getting around the fact Rita Garcia has reached a milestone in her career with the Point Isabel Independent School District, but whether she actually retires this time around is another matter.
Garcia, 69, is the counselor at Port Isabel Junior High School and is celebrating 50 years with the school district. But just because it’s the big 50 is no reason to think retirement any more than when she was 50 and had been with the district for 30, when she retired briefly.
“It’s a milestone, the fact that I’ve hit the 50-year mark. I’m taking it one day at a time. I’m here and people are going I mean you’ve made the 50. Are you ready to retire? Uh no, not really,” she said by phone just before starting Spring Break.
“As long as I enjoy what I’m doing and God gives me my health I will keep on doing it. A year, two years? I don’t know how many more years, I don’t. It’s how I feel, and I thank God,” she said as she caught her breath last Thursday after a morning spent on college and career readiness at the junior high’s first college, career and military expo in several years.
Garcia’s own career path started as a paraprofessional at Port Isabel’s two elementary schools after former Superintendent Ruben Torres offered her a position that included the district paying for her college. She taught at Derry and Garriaga elementary schools before becoming a counselor.
“I’ve had wonderful mentors,” she said. “As a matter of fact, after I ‘retired,’ shortly after, that summer, my mentor that I had as a kinder teacher was then a high school principal, and he said, ‘Rita, I need a GEAR UP facilitator at the high school.’ And I said, ‘Excuse me. I’ve never worked at the high school level. I’ve done all elementary.’ And he says, ‘I really think you would be great at it.’ I talked to my husband, my husband’s also a counselor, and he said, ‘You know, it’s easy. High school is awesome. You will love it.’”
“And I learned that if you respect the students, they’ll respect you. I loved it. I continued being a GEAR UP facilitator for my daughter’s grade level in seventh grade until she graduated, that group,” she said.
After two cycles as the high school GEAR UP facilitator, she applied for and got the job as the counselor at the junior high, where she has been since.
“So, since I retired, when I was 50, it’s been 19 years that I started working back again. I’m 69, and I thank God each and every day. I ask Him to make me an instrument of his love each and every day, give me patience, you know, to guide our kids in the direction they need. And praise God, I’m still going,” she said.
It’s a milestone, the fact that I’ve hit the 50-year mark. I’m taking it one day at a time. I’m here and people are going I mean you’ve made the 50. Are you ready to retire? Uh no, not really.
Garcia added that she has too much energy to think about retiring.
“I love what I do, you know, and that’s why I continue doing it. I enjoy it. I love the connection with the kids. I love knowing that we can influence and we touch somebody’s life, at least one a day, so we’re making a big difference. I love what I do and like I say my husband’s my co-counselor. We counsel each other once in awhile but by the time we get home we don’t like to talk shop, We like to take a break, but we both enjoy what we do,” she said.
Garcia and her husband Rudy, a social worker and counselor at Port Isabel High School who services all of the district’s campuses, met when they were children.
“It was at pre-school, and then we separated because he went to parochial school and then we didn’t meet again until we were in junior high,” she said.
“And so we were friends then, and we were neighbors. And so we had a good friendship, and then after we finished high school, we hooked up. And he was my soulmate, and he was the love of my life. And we have been married happily for 43 years,” she said.
Her husband was in the room and they compared notes, “OK, we got married in ‘77. We’re counting up now. It’s 46. Oh my goodness, we lost track somewhere along the line.”
