For his final proclamation as County Council president, Councilman Phil Andrews (D-Dist. 3) recognized a man who knew him back when he wanted to be a politician but was still a tennis star: Joseph Monte, his high school counselor.
For thousands of students, Monte needs no introduction. He began teaching at Albert Einstein High School in 1962 — the year it opened — and became a counselor two years later. More than four decades into a career in the office that rendered counselors "sort of minor league doctors on call," Monte started to think so long as he maintains the current level of health and support he enjoys from his wife Mary Catherine, he "might as well go for 50."
That's just two more years to go for a half century of work at Einstein.
The County Council issued a proclamation recognizing and thanking Monte for his accomplishments at a ceremony Dec. 1. Two of Monte's former students, Andrews of Gaithersburg, and Councilman Marc Elrich (D-At Large) of Takoma Park, are on the County Council.
"[Andrews] was going to do this on one of two occasions, either when I retired or I died," Monte joked. "But he saved it for his last proclamation."
Andrews wanted to honor Monte for his accomplishments, which include being the English teacher and mentor to the novelist Pat Conroy at a previous job at Gonzaga High School in Washington, D.C., serving as president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, and founding the Potomac and Chesapeake Association for College Admissions Counseling.
"I thought it was a nice way to end the year," Andrews said. "He's one of the people I admire most. I've now had a chance to work with a lot of people over the years and see a lot of people in action and someone like Joseph Monte who has worked for 50 years to help and inspire students is at the top of my list."
Monte said over the years, challenges of counseling have changed as drugs came onto the scene in the late 1960s and a school that once had mostly complete families now has "probably 50 percent" single parents, and the challenges brought with that. The difference in the high school environment is great, he said; lunches didn't even used to be supervised.
"The truth to all of life is that your failures probably outnumber your victories because you're dealing with family circumstances that are fairly difficult," Monte said, recalling his career, but the successes keep him going. He especially takes pride in his individually-crafted college recommendation letters, which once even reversed the non-admission of a student to Georgetown University to a full scholarship.
Recently, while out to dinner celebrating the proclamation from the council, Monte and his wife ran into the father of a student named Juan, for whom Monte had written a letter of recommendation that garnered a full-ride scholarship to the University of Maryland. To a family in which the father worked at a restaurant and the mother cleaned houses, the scholarship was a godsend, and the father immediately called Juan, who came to the restaurant.
"I could have retired 20 years ago if I just got one of those (experiences) every five years, but I get those things fairly frequently," Monte said.
Farida Uddin, the senior class president at Einstein, said Monte is "very motivating."
"If I come in for a schedule change, he's going to try to put me in the most rigorous classes," Uddin, 18, of Silver Spring, said.
And he has a way with students, she said, that helps him get the message across.
"He's very friendly, he's never in a bad mood, he seems to want to be here — not all the teachers want to be here — he's very old and he's still here," Uddin said. "I know I'm in good hands, he knows what he's doing. Just to have his signature on my recommendation means a lot."
Monte said when he writes his recommendations he looks for the students' "personhood," an activity he enjoys through all of counseling.
"One of the, I would say, dividends of being a counselor is in a few lives being there in the right moment is like the grace of God because not a week goes by where there isn't a moment of truth," Monte said.
