Dolores Barela has become quite the familiar face at Lucerne Valley Elementary School.
It's understandable considering she's been helping students in the high desert community of Lucerne Valley for 45 years.
"Generations do change, but they're all good kids," said Barela. "Even if they behave terribly and make bad choices. They have that heart. They're still good kids."
Barela started as a "room mom" back in the 1970s. She said the principal at the school told her that he wanted to hire her part-time to help in any way she could, even though she didn't have a teaching credential.
"I want you permanently for four hours a day. We'll work around you," Barela said the school principal told her in 1980. "I said OK, and I thought that's OK. I told my husband, and he said, "You can do whatever you want.'"
Barela began her professional career as an instructional aide.
She's never held a position as a credentialed teacher in the school district, but over the decades she has helped students who were struggling.
While she is certainly firm with the students who come to see her for assistance, she doesn't consider herself to be very strict.
"All I ask is the truth," said Barela about her demands on the students. "If you can't say the truth, you don't owe me the truth, but you do owe the truth to your parents if I call your parents. You need to be honest with them because you live with them."
Barela says students she taught decades ago still remember her. She also now works alongside full-time teachers at the school who she once taught long ago.
"She helps with kiddos who just need a little more love during the day," the school principal, Joanna Mora, said. "They want to get out of the heat, get out of the cold, go somewhere else to eat lunch and she's just always there helping us and making our lives easier."
Mora said Barela told her she doesn't have any plans to retire anytime soon, even after working at the school for 45 years.
"In fact, we tell her if she tries to retire, we're going to go with her," joked Mora. "Or we'll chain her to the table to keep her here, because I don't know what we would do without her."