At age 64, high school lunch lady and grandmother of seven earns high school diploma at Hayward Adult School
Rosa Martin was just 10 years old when she left Michoacán, Mexico, with her mother and five of her 10 siblings. It was 1969. They were granted visas to rejoin her father, who was working in California under the Bracero farm labor program.
Her life was moving fast. At 15, Rosa would drop out of high school to get married. She would raise four daughters with her husband and partner with him in running a restaurant in Fremont before eventually becoming a stay-at-home grandmother.
After helping with seven grandchildren, Martin took a job as a cafeteria worker, baking pizzas, brownies and muffins and serving lunches for students at Fremont’s Irvington High School. She loved the job, even if it reminded her that neither she nor any of her siblings had earned a high school diploma.
“I told (my teacher), ‘I can’t go on.’ I honestly was too depressed. He was very sympathetic. He told me to please take a month or two as a break but to work on my assignments as I could. He didn’t want me to quit.”
Rosa Martin, Grandmother and Hayward Adult School Graduate
Then one day, Martin’s niece—Monica Gonzalez, a teacher—told her about the Hayward Adult School. As part of the Mid-Alameda County Consortium for Adult Education, the school offers high school diploma and GED preparation programs, career technical education (CTE) and ESL and citizenship classes.
“She says, ‘Why don’t you and my mom go back to school to get your diplomas?’” Rosa recalled. “I asked, ‘How do you do that?’ She kept telling me about the program and I says, ‘Okay, I’ll do it if you just help me with the paperwork’” for enrollment.
Rosa began her studies in October 2023, attending classes one day a week and immersing herself in homework in English, science, history and math. The latter was a major challenge. “It was the hardest thing,” she says. “I’m not a math person.”
Her extended family embraced her academic journey. Her 10-year-old grandson shared his multiplication tables with her and cheered on her studies. She went on to pass her math course and develop a fascination with U.S. history. “Everything I read about was interesting,” she says.
She thrived under the guidance of adult education teacher Miguel Mijares. He lifted her up after Rosa was crushed by two family tragedies—the death of a sister from an illness and brother from a workplace shooting.
“I told him, ‘I can’t go on.’ I honestly was too depressed,” Rosa says. “He was very sympathetic. He told me to please take a month or two as a break but to work on my assignments as I could. He didn’t want me to quit.”
Neither did her family. Her daughters, husband and grandchildren urged her to continue. So did her 99-year-old mother, Rosa Zambrano.
In May 2024, at age 64, Rosa walked across a stage to accept her diploma. At home, the family greeted her with a huge celebration, with food, drinks and abundant flowers.
Word quickly spread among the staff and students at Irvington High School, where Rosa had taken to encouraging the kids in the lunch line to study hard for their tests.
“I love working in school with the kids,” she says. “I understand them more. I encourage them, ‘Just keep on going.’ When I told them I just graduated, everyone was so excited.”
The Hayward Adult School is part of the Mid-Alameda County Consortium (MACC), one of 71 consortia of adult education providers across the state. The MACC includes Chabot College, Las Positas College, Eden ROP, Tri Valley ROP, and the adult schools in Castro Valley, Dublin, Hayward, Livermore, New Haven, Pleasanton, San Leandro, and San Lorenzo. For more information about the Hayward Adult School, go to has.husd.us. For more information about the MACC and its member schools, go to www.macc4ae.org.
Written by Peter Hecht
| Regions | Classes |
|---|---|
| Bay Area California | English as a Second Language – High School |
