By: Noah Ramos 

For this Teacher Spotlight we had the pleasure to interview our beloved Theatre Arts teacher Mrs. Rodriguez. Her story starts in college where she actually had a different career path before acting/teaching and found an ad asking for actors that could sing for a play at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center. Since she had sung during high school she decided to audition and got to be cast in the play where she said she loved it. At that point she decided it was time for a career change and started to work towards her Theatre degree to continue acting. 

She has acted in many plays such as Las Nuevas Tamaleras along with commercials with H-E-B and some for the pandemic. When asked about why she chose to work here she claimed it was because no one knew her here and it was like starting with a clean slate here. Since she had been performing in San Antonio for so long that when she would go for job interviews they would recognize her from when she performed. Her philosophy for education didn’t align with this since that wasn’t the way she worked with students and was excited with teaching them what she knew.

 Since no one recognized her in Pleasanton Mrs. Rodriguez felt as though this was her chance to talk about what meant so much to her where she wanted to work with the students and give to them. She enjoys the people along with meeting, speaking, and teaching others in Pleasanton when she gets the chance. Mrs. Rodriguez has 2 siblings where she is the oldest of the bunch with her younger sister being the second and her younger brother being last. Her sister also worked in education for 30 years before retiring while her brother is an environmental lawyer. 

Unfortunately her mother has Alzheimer’s disease but has done many interviews for News Stations getting the message out on how to treat those with Alzheimer’s along with how they feel. However, even though her disease is progressing she still spreads the message about Alzheimer’s while being cared for by the husband who took the role of being a caretaker for her. Mrs. Rodriguez is also a part of the Caring for the Caregiver Council who is taking a look at those who care for patients with Alzheimer’s. Like what they need or how they feel but are an advisory council in order to tell them about programs that need to be known and researched.

 Mrs. Rodriguez’s parents have been huge advocates for going out of their way to help with earlier detection and how it helps to make things easier for not just the patient but for the caregiver as well. Mrs. Rodriguez has a couple plays she loved such as again Las Nuevas Tamaleras, Real Women have curves, and Miss Saigon but her favorite straight play was Fences by August Wilson. During competitions at One Act Mrs. Rodriguez enjoys seeing how the students’ skills have grown from when they started to the day of the competition. She also states when it is time for competitions that it is out of her hands and now it is fully the students in control to see how much they have grown.

 Mrs. Rodriguez was also the person who proposed Pleasanton participate in One Act and has been doing it for 20 years running. So students if you happen to see her in the hallways or somewhere else don’t hesitate to say hello or if you have questions about acting she is the one to ask.