As a high schooler, Mountain View High School history teacher David Ortiz had a somewhat unconventional after school routine.
After the final school bell of the day, he’d go straight to the library, where he’d do homework until the library closed. Then he’d head over to the park across the street and sit on a bench, where he’d finish up any work he had until 10 p.m., when the park’s lights turned off. A few blocks over was a McDonald’s, which he’d walk to and sit in the back of until midnight, the establishment’s closing time.
Only then would he go home.
But, Ortiz’s home didn’t really exist. During his junior year, he usually slept in little nooks of local business buildings. But after a while, cops began to drive around that area, so he started sleeping in the pockets of a Mormon tabernacle.
“No one would ever know I was there,” Ortiz said. “I would get there after 12:00 a.m. and pack up by 6:00 a.m. Like clockwork.”
Ortiz is open to his students about his past, often incorporating personal anecdotes into lesson plans, said Mountain View High senior Téa Fazio, who was in Ortiz’s AP U.S. History class last year. Upon first hearing about his challenging upbringing, Fazio was “pretty much shocked,” she said.
As Fazio’s time with Ortiz went on, she quickly came to realize that Ortiz was one of the most understanding teachers she’d ever had and that his kindness likely stemmed from overcoming the many hardships she’d heard about.
“I think he’s among the best teachers at the school,” Fazio said. “Even if you’re not a history person, even if you’re not into the topics he’s necessarily talking about, he will make sure that you’re getting as much out of a class that you could possibly get.”
Born to a deaf mom and an absent dad, Ortiz’s childhood was never easy. His elementary school years were riddled with emotional and physical abuse, often at the hands of his mom’s many boyfriends. By sixth grade, he’d joined a gang, which was just “what everybody did” in that part of Bakersfield, California.
At the start of high school, after moving to the other side of the city, he’d made friends with good families who “stressed education and accountability,” which made Ortiz realize he should set some longer-term goals for himself.
While looking on the back of one of his football cards, he saw that his then-favorite football player Anthony Muñoz played for the University of Southern California. And so, his mind was set. He was determined to attend USC.
Around that time, Ortiz’s mom married a man whom Ortiz didn’t get along with. Halfway through his sophomore year, Ortiz’s mom was met with a choice: She either had to choose her son or her husband.
“I ended up being homeless a year into [their marriage],” Ortiz said. “I literally just got kicked out, like, ‘Get your stuff out, goodbye.’ That was the scariest experience I’d ever had. I had no idea what to do.”
The next two-and-a-half years of Ortiz’s life were dedicated to getting good grades and staying out of trouble. As the “smelly and weird” kid in the back of the class, the only way to get positive attention from classmates was by having insanely good cursive handwriting, he’d found. Even today, his advanced calligraphy covers the whiteboards in his classroom, garnering questions from his curious students.
Every year, a USC admissions officer visited Ortiz’s high school to attract applicants, which gave him the chance to “put a face to his application.” To put it short: he made sure he was on USC’s radar by being on the visiting admission officer’s case nonstop. And his efforts were worth it, as he ended up getting into USC with a full-ride scholarship.
“I went from being super poor to going to one of the most expensive colleges in the world,” Ortiz said. “My life changed completely. … It was one of the first times I’d actually felt like I was part of something.”
But his upbringing and undergraduate experience at USC only makes up a portion of Ortiz’s story. After graduating, he joined the military for five years, and served in Afghanistan. While overseas, he felt an intense brotherhood and camaraderie, something he’d lacked his entire life. He then went back to USC to earn a Master’s Degree and later moved up to Northern California to study at Stanford University.
“There were so many points in my life where things could’ve changed,” Ortiz said. “I stay grateful for the things I have because it could’ve gone a lot worse.”
Like Fazio, Mountain View High senior Amelia Renfro believes that Ortiz’s kindhearted nature stems from the struggles he’s had to overcome.
“I think people’s life experiences make them a lot more empathetic. Him, especially,” said Renfro, who Ortiz taught last year. “He’s without a doubt the best teacher I’ve ever had.”
Not only that, but as Ortiz’s teacher assistant this year, Renfro has gotten the chance to see that, besides being a fantastic teacher and mentor, he’s simply a “wonderful person” in all regards.
“I’ve always really respected and loved him both as a teacher and person,” Renfro said. “The biggest thing I’ve noticed is that he just really, truly cares about everybody.”
Now pursuing another Master’s degree through Harvard University, Ortiz’s journey is far from over. Throughout it all —the good and the bad — the strongest thing he believes he can maintain is will. Without it, he wouldn’t have been able to get to where he is now, he said.
“Everybody changes, and it’s really our choice to change for the positive or negative,” Ortiz said. “I want my students to know that they can be resilient.”
This is precisely the central thing he stresses to his freshmen students: That they can change the narrative.
“Our system is not fair,” Ortiz said. “But at the same time, it doesn’t stop us from doing what we can to prove people wrong. That’s really what it comes down to.”
