Before most students have even left home, she’s already clicking through attendance logs and planning for the rest of the day.

Sorting through reports, updating student records, managing attendance corrections and more — Attendance Clerk Marta Flores de Gomez isn’t a stranger to handling it all. Behind the scenes, Flores ensures the school runs smoothly, keeping track of thousands of students and staff each day.

Flores’s love for her work pushes her to give her all, no matter the workload.

“I have to be at school at 7:30, but I always come at 7:00 a.m. because I have a lot to do,” Flores said. “I also like to be here early all the time.”

For over eight years, Flores has been part of Bellaire’s staff. She served first as Head of Custodians, then as Attendance Clerk. When she was the Head of Custodians, she arrived at school at 4:30 a.m. to make sure the building was ready before teachers came in, and stayed at school until 2:30 p.m.

“Honestly, I love to work,” Flores said. “When teachers came in to clock in, I was sweating [from the work]. I helped replace the lights, picked up the trash, and fixed broken items.”

Her dedication didn’t go unnoticed. Flores earned Staff of the Year four years she worked as Head of Custodians, with her name engraved on a brick in the courtyard.

“Ms. Frank, the former Associate Principal, told me, ‘You will do a great job as an Attendance Clerk,’ [and] she offered me the position before she left,” Flores said. “They saw all the years I had in my position as Head of Custodians.”

Pre-AP Spanish 2 teacher Micaela Segal de la Garza worked alongside Flores for years, and described Flores as dependable and caring, even remembering Flores driving outside of school on her own time just to help a former teacher out.

“She ran a tight ship,” Segal said. “She would drop everything to help anyone. [Flores] was always on top of her work, and at the same time, she genuinely cared about everyone around her.”

Segal said that Flores’ dedication to her job went beyond her official duties.

“Even when she changed roles to the office, you could see the same kindness and consideration she had in everything that she did,” Segal said. “She goes above and beyond for students and staff alike, and it’s obvious how much she loves her job.”

As the school’s attendance clerk, she handles far more than student attendance.

“I do attendance for field trips, OSP [out-of-school suspension], in-school suspension, and I have to call administrators for the in-school suspension and they send me a list,” Flores said. “I also have to do attendance for testing.”

But Flores’s workload does not stop there, as she also manages teacher absences and substitute teacher rosters, responsibilities that she has to catch up on in her absence.

“If I’m not here, nobody does my work,” Flores said. “When my mom passed away on March 28, I had to catch up on my work at home because I wasn’t able to be at school.”

Months later, Flores said her mother still remains in her thoughts daily.

“It’s hard,” Flores said. “In the morning, at lunchtime, I used to talk to her. When I left school, I called her and asked her, ‘Mom, what do you need from the supermarket?’ She didn’t live with me, but I always called or visited. Every day, I called her.”

While losing her mother left a lasting pain, Flores said working and staying busy helped her process her grief.

“I think of her in everything,” Flores said.

Flores grew up in El Salvador with her mother. She said the biggest lesson she learned was to work hard, and Flores brought that drive to the United States in 2011, including the knowledge of how to prepare pupusas and tortillas for family meals.

“I celebrated Christmas with my mom,” Flores said. “I didn’t know she was going to die [in March], but I thank God I was able to be with her, hug her and tell her that I love her. When you lose your mom, that’s a very hard moment in life, but I feel that she’s with me.”

Flores said one of her happiest memories with her mother came a few months before her passing.

“A happy moment was last year for her birthday,” Flores said. “I took her out to have lunch with me and my friends. At first, I wasn’t going to go [to lunch] because it was her birthday, but a retired teacher, Ms. Denman told me, ‘Why don’t you bring her?’ So I did, and we celebrated her birthday together. My mom turned 82 last November.”

Though losing her mother was one of the hardest experiences in her life, Flores said that she carries and continues her mother’s lessons with her daily.

“The best advice I can say is if you have a mom: love her, respect her, honor her, and listen to her advice because you never know when she’ll pass away,” Flores said.

Hearing her mother’s voice to stay on top of things, Flores said she will do what it takes to complete her work on time.

“My mom always told me ‘Don’t procrastinate, do the work as soon as possible,’” Flores said. “She was not a procrastinator, so I like to do work immediately, and feel as though work has to be done as soon as possible. I don’t leave my work for tomorrow if I can do it today.”

Because of her heavy workload at school, Flores sometimes takes work home, avoiding procrastination.

“I love my job, and if necessary I take work home,” Flores said. “Sometimes I’m very busy because I have to also balance some reports that we have to send every cycle to the teachers.

For senior Jay Stanfield, Flores’s kindness made the attendance office a “bright spot” in his school day.

“When I first met [Flores] my freshman year, she was really sweet,” Stanfield said. “She’s a really nice face to see in the morning.”

According to Stanfield, he voluntarily offers to take the attendance just to meet Flores in the attendance office and talk to her.

“She’s very lovable,” Stanfield said. “Even if I’m having a bad day, every interaction I have with her makes my day better. She always has something nice to say.”

Stanfield said that Flores inspires him to be a better person, and her resilience through tough times is something he wants to take after himself.

“Even in the worst moments, she’s still very positive,” Stanfield said. “That’s what I admire the most about her, she doesn’t let anyone bring her down. She works so hard each day, and no matter what happens, she keeps going.”