Martinez: Wild side at Manteca High
Amanda Martinez works on her computer on Aug. 22, 2025, ensuring that her students' grades are up to date, answering emails, and creating future assignments for students. (Sept. 22, 2025).
By MUZAMMIL HAKIM
The Tower
MANTECA – As you walk into AG 1, it’s like entering a whole new space that is much different from the normal classroom.
To your right you see a large snake slithering around its case, guinea pigs crying for food, a lizard chilling on a rock bathing under the heat lamp, a turtle sitting like a rock in the middle of its bed, and rabbits hopping all over their cages.
This isn’t Amanda Martinez’s only thing to watch over for. The Manteca High agriculture and small animal instructor also has many students to look after ... just like the animals.
Martinez teaches Small Animal Management. She has worked as a teacher for more than 14 years but has also had other careers before settling as a teacher.
“I love helping students and pushing them into achieving their goals Amanda Martinez said. “I really see happiness when students do good in the classroom.”
She has worked as a zookeeper and assistant manager at a small winery.
Her career as a zookeeper at Fresno Zoo Provided her knowledge of how to take care of many different types of animals, from small animals to wild ones.
She also worked as an assistant manager at a small winery, which has taught her how to manage important tasks like money and taking care of animals
Sophomore Jasrai Dhatt is a student in her class. He is currently taking her class and really enjoys it. He believes Martinez’s work experiences make her an effective teacher.
“Mrs. Martiez has impacted me by teaching me how to care for animals,” he said. “She also taught me proper leadership.”
The Tower decided to catch up with Amanda Martinez to discuss her role on this campus as a teacher who works with animals and a member of FFA.
Amanda Martiez is working with a student on Aug. 22, 2025, who needs help with his assignment. (Muzammil Hakim/The Tower)
The Tower: As a child were you always interested in animals?
Amanda Martinez: Yes, absolutely. We had Dachshunds. My mom raised Dachshunds, and, ever since I was little, there was always animals around. As I got older, I got to get other animals like rabbits and guinea pigs, and starting riding horses when I was 5. So it was an obsession for sure.
TT: Did you have family members that had an influence on you to take this career path?
AM: My family always encouraged me to pursue my passion, so I did a lot of different things with animals and becoming an ag teacher wasn’t anything I actually thought about, until later I started, one of my jobs was education, when I worked at the zoo in Fresno. And so, it kind of became, like, a natural step to go into education from there.
TT: What was your career before becoming a teacher?
AM: I went into the industry after college, because I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a teacher at the time, and I actually worked in the wine industry. I was an assistant manager at a small winery.
TT: Manteca used to be a farm town and FFA was very big. As Manteca grows and becomes more modernized, do you still think FFA is relevant?
AM: I do think FFA is still relevant because it has changed with the modernization of the world, so it’s not just production agriculture anymore. Its technology as well as the sciences, um, that have helped shape the way agriculture is today. So, drone technology, programming, lab-based research are all super important in agriculture.
TT: Why is it important for people to learn about FFA?
AM: It's important for people to learn about FFA because they can learn leadership skills by being in the program. It's not just about agriculture, any of the skills they learn about being good leaders, public speakers, can transfer into any career student wants. But it also, you know, it's nice when they find that they really like it, and they want to pursue a career in agriculture.