From bus driver to teacher
It’s 5 a.m. in the morning and the dawn has yet to break as 22-year-old Ricardo Martinez waits for the start light in Bus 5 to turn off. As the light goes out, he cranks the key, the engine roars and it’s time to start the day.
The Alice native rode the bus to school from elementary to high school and now is starting his fourth year driving a school bus for Alice ISD (AISD).
“I was a little boy and the Disney movie Sky High came out. Ron Wilson [was the] bus driver, don’t ask me why, but he was my role model and I was like I’m gonna drive a bus. That was my goal graduating high school. ‘I don’t know how or when but I’m gonna get my CDL to drive a school bus,’” Martinez said.
Martinez started the process of acquiring his CDL in August 2018 while also attending Texas A&M University-Kingsville (TAMUK). Fast-forward to 2021, and with college graduation on the horizon, Martinez plans to teach the very students he transports to school every day in Alice.
“I was a bus aide on a special needs route and did that for about a month, and then I got bored,” Martinez said. “I was like okay I want to be a driver and so I studied [during] my first semester at TAMUK, having to juggle my first set of college classes and working on my CDL was not easy, but I had the great training and support for my supervisor Daniel Galvan.”
Galvan is the Transportation Supervisor for Alice ISD.
“He is a very good driver for his age, he actually started out when he was 18,” Galvan said of Martinez. “A lot of these students when they graduate, I don’t think they have the responsibility that they need to become a driver, but Ricardo was actually very dependable. He had it all and that was one of the reasons we actually trained him.”
According to the Department of Public Transportation you must be 18 years old to receive a CDL. Although Martinez was of age, Galvan said he received some concern from others while training Martinez.
“He’s very dependable and respectful and that’s what we need in a driver. He’s also very responsible for his age; it’s very rare in my opinion,” Galvan said.
Martinez was the first 18-year-old driver for the district, which hosts 13 drivers.
“It was October 24th, 2018, I went to Corpus and did my driving test which you have to know everything mechanically about the school bus and you also have to parallel park a school bus. I mean, I don’t know how I did it on the bus, I can barely parallel my car sometimes but we got it done,” he joked.
Martinez was recently given a promotion within AISD and completes a route where he picks up and drops off 70 elementary school students.
“Let me just tell you those little kids stole my heart because I welcome the idea of teaching elementary now, middle school a little bit more so, but if I had to choose, I still want to do high school. If not high school, elementary, definitely those little kids stole my heart, those little Coyotes,” he said. “They just have so much love to give and they see you in the morning…‘oh it’s Mr. Ricky.’ We forget that our custodians, our school bus drivers, our secretaries play such an important role in our students and the day they have. As a school bus driver, you’re most likely the first face they see of the district in the morning and the last one in the afternoon so my goal, and it’s not easy, but my goal is to always start the day and end the day on a good note with my students.”
Martinez is an interdisciplinary studies major with a concentration in technology application at TAMUK.
“I knew I wanted to be a teacher since I was in elementary school, middle school, high school. I had teachers that made such an impact that I couldn’t see myself doing anything besides education, so when I got here to TAMUK I knew I wanted to be an educator,” he said.
Last spring Martinez conducted student observations with Cori Cardenas, a Javelina alumnus, who teaches eighth grade with Kingsville ISD.
“The goal for students in student observation is basically getting their feet wet in the classroom,” Cardenas said. “So what Ricardo was doing was basically watching me and observing me and what I do in the classroom, what I do as a teacher. He…wasn’t shy, the kids loved him.”
His experience as a bus driver will serve him in the classroom, Cardenas said.
Martinez said it never occurred to him that the students he currently transports could be his students next year.
“I do think being a school bus driver has set that foundation in terms of classroom management because when you’re the school bus driver, you’re in charge of your bus and you’re expected to have order in your bus and for everyone to get home safely and come to school safe,” he said.
Martinez, a McNair Scholar, also plans to apply for graduate school to pursue his master’s in hopes of being an administrator one day.
“I’m hoping and praying that they put me in Alice for my student teaching, because that means that I would most likely be able to stay at the department where I’m at right now. I’m really hoping and praying hard that that’s what happens, but whatever happens, happens, you know?” he said.
Martinez, a senior, is entering the last year of his bachelor’s program, but has plenty of inspiration to finish the year citing the students on his bus as his biggest motivators.
“You don’t do it for the pay whether you’re a teacher, principal, bus driver, custodian, you don’t do it for the money, you do for the students,” he said. “You have to love students and have their best interest in mind to be in any field in education and that is my goal, to make an impact in the field of education in our area.”
