Third in a series
Re “Montes of Culver Park: How Alternative Schools Are Distinct”
The question concerned a profile of the typical continuation school student.
“After close to 30 years in alternative ed,” says the incoming principal of Culver Park High School, “I have students who come from extremely successful parents who have spent a lot of time focusing. And from professional parents.
“But every kid is different,” said Veronica Montes, looking entirely comfortable behind a desk inside Farragut Elementary while she awaits Culver Park’s new facility, on the parking lot out back.
The principal was on her way to saying that continuation schools are the quintessential examples of diversity.
“Here is something I always do,” Ms. Montes said.
“I am a parent, first and foremost. I always am putting myself in the position of the parents: What would I want for my own child? I want to create an environment I would put my own kid into.
“The result is,” said Ms. Montes, “I have kids whose parents are very successful. They are involved. I also have kids with parents who are not involved.”
Midway through her second generation as an educator, the principal firmly is convinced a single profile t does not fit anymore than in another stream of schooling. The student body, in many ways, looks and acts the way they do at traditional schools.
“I have had kids who had drug problems at some point,” she said. “These students can have parents who are very involved, parents who try to stay on top of them. Others have parents who are absent.”
Perhaps what follows was one reason Ms. Montes was selected to lead headless Culver Park, which lost its last principal in the middle of the school term:
“In all my years of doing alternative ed,” she said, “I don’t think I ever have met a bad kid. Some have lacked guidance. Some have struggled. But a bad kid? No.
“Coming to Culver Park now is a new opportunity.”
