Montoy-Wilson leaves “every community she has connected with better for her presence in it,” as one teacher at Aspire East Palo Alto Charter School put it. The school’s principal since 2015—and before that, a master teacher and mentor in its first, second and third grade classes—Montoy-Wilson has committed her career to the school for more than a decade. She is known for her fierce advocacy on behalf of the community’s students and families.
Montoy-Wilson believes in serving the whole child, actively working toward equity and promoting a lifelong-learner mentality. She works to support all learners in feeling empowered and trusted to find their passions. “[I]n so many instances,” she has written, we “rob students of the opportunity to think for themselves, to create, to imagine.”
In addition to teaching and leading, Montoy-Wilson has been active in panel discussions and in partnerships with the Teaching Channel and programs including the Project for Education Research that Scales (PERTS), the Aspire Teacher Residency Program and the America Achieves Fellowship for Teachers and Principals. She has also served as a mentor to students in the Stanford Teacher Education Program (STEP).
Transforming medical education