Following her 35 years of teaching, Armanda Garcia-Lopez will be retiring from her teaching position in the World Languages department. Her retirement plans consist of spending more time with her family and traveling. During her many years of teaching, Garcia-Lopez has worked with students in elementary along with high school students, but she explained that working with high school students is what she prefers. With her lengthy tenure, she has definitely fulfilled her lifelong goal.

“Teaching has always been a dream of mine, ever since I was 4 years old,” Garcia-Lopez said. “I definitely fulfilled my goals in these last 35 years.”

Once Garcia-Lopez retires, she has plans to travel the world. She wishes to spend six months in Spain, her place of origin, and visit family on her stay. Following that, she hopes to spend some time in France. Once Garcia-Lopez is ready to settle down from her travels, she will then relocate to the East Coast with her family and live in a nice cottage on the shoreline.

Over the years, Garcia-Lopez has worked at three different school districts. She has experience as a principal, a teacher specialist, along with being a teacher. She currently has been teaching the higher AP/IB levels of the languages. As time has gone by, she is very grateful to have worked in wonderful districts such as Riverside, Pomona, and Claremont.

In the end, Garcia-Lopez is looking forward to a new chapter in her life and does not regret a single second of her past. She will greatly miss her memories and moments with her students. As she explained, watching them learn and grow was very meaningful to her. She always enjoyed to hear how her graduated seniors’ Spanish had grown, and where the language had taken them. Whether they had moved to a foreign country, or had just grown successfully within the language, all of these interactions were meaningful to Garcia-Lopez.