Clifton Park teacher found new beginning in Killeen Posted On: Monday, Nov. 2 2009 04:53 AM By Rebecca LaFlure
Killeen Daily Herald

Raquel Madera moved to Killeen 11 years ago in search of a new beginning. The recently-divorced mother of two began scrubbing dishes and serving food part-time in the Clifton Park Elementary School cafeteria.

"I worked in the kitchen in the morning, at a laundromat in the evenings, and cleaned offices on the weekends," said Madera, who dropped out of school at 16.

"It was really bad. We suffered; we were really poor."

But life is different, said Madera, who's since graduated from Tarleton University-Central Texas. She now teaches English and writing classes to 32 bilingual children at Clifton Park.

"A lot of them (my students) knew me when I was in the kitchen, knew me as an aide and now they know me as a teacher," she said. "My goal is for them to think about their education, their life and their future. … I tell them they can do it, too."

Originally from Jalisco, Mexico, Madera moved to Nevada when she was 11 years old. She worked in watermelon and cantaloupe fields each summer to help support her family.

Madera, desperate to find a way out of poverty, dropped out of school when she was 16 and got married.

"Finding the way out is not actually the way out. It's the way in to something worse," she said.

Madera left her husband in 1998 and moved to Killeen. She found a second family at Clifton Park, she said.

She received her GED six months after she began working at the school.

With the help of several teachers, she started taking class at Central Texas College in the summer of 1999.

Jennifer Sullivan, the principal of Clifton Park at the time, worked with Madera's schedule so she could work full-time and still attend college classes.

Throughout the course of nine years, Madera worked as a dishwasher, crossing guard, media aide, pre-kindergarten aide and bilingual aide.

"I don't know if any other school would do the same thing," she said.

"I always look back and think I'm meant to be here."

Madera graduated in May 2008 with a bachelor's degree from Tarleton. She began working as an English Language Learners teacher that fall.

She said she relates to a lot of the students she teaches.

"If I have the opportunity, I tell them my story," she said.

"I want them to be a better person, not just academically but I want their self-esteem to grow."

Madera now plans to return to college to get a master's degree. She wants to prove that she can do it — both to herself and to her students.

"I want to show my children and my family that by myself as a single mom, I could do it," she said. "I want to show my students that they can do whatever they want."

Contact Rebecca LaFlure at rlaflure@kdhnews.com or (254) 501-7548.