Retiring Valley principal leaves legacy of inspiring his students

By Paul Takahashi

Saturday, Aug. 6, 2011 | 2 a.m.

Every morning for the past 12 years, one phrase could be heard over and over across the Valley High School campus. By the bus stop, in the hallways, over the loudspeaker and even adorning a cafeteria wall.

“You are the best.”

It might sound corny, but those four words have become ingrained at Valley, a public high school in a rough neighborhood that has seen its share of struggles.

This fall, students will no longer hear them from Principal Ron Montoya. He announced his retirement Friday after 36 years with the Clark County School District.

“My grandmother used to tell me all the time, ‘Tu eres el mejor,’ ” Montoya said, which means, “You are the best” in Spanish.

“That’s the reason why I tell my kids they’re smart, they’re the best, every day,” he continued. “They start thinking they’re smart, they start thinking they’re the best and not only do they act better but they have hope.”

“You are the best.”

When Montoya stepped foot at Valley High School 12 years ago, it was undergoing a seismic change.

Suburban high schools such as Green Valley, Silverado and Centennial had just opened, pulling white students away from Valley High, 2839 Burnham Ave., near Sahara and Eastern avenues and not far from downtown Las Vegas.

That transformed student demographics at the 46-year-old school, which once served predominantly white students. Within a few years, Valley became 86 percent minority students, Montoya said.

The district brought him in to strike a balance with the changing demographics and to boost achievement, which had spiraled downward.

Montoya, who is Mexican-American, started using his own history to connect with his students, said Patty Hey, a longtime science teacher at Valley.

“Ron was an underprivileged kid himself,” Hey said. “He knows that education is so important because that was what got him to be able to go off to college and become what he is today.”

Montoya grew up in California with his grandparents. His grandfather was a migrant farmer who picked cotton and artichokes. His grandmother, Victoria Jesusita Corona, wanted a better life for him. She enrolled Montoya in Catholic schools, where he “had that real good upbringing,” Montoya said.

With his grandmother’s encouragement, Montoya became the first in his family to go to college on a basketball scholarship to Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, Calif., where he was the only Hispanic player on the team. He went on to earn his master’s from California State University at Hayward.

“There was no way I was going to drop out. No way,” Montoya said, tears welling up in his eyes. “It didn’t make any difference what my background was. That’s what I tell my kids.”

His grandmother, Victoria, died in June in the same house Montoya grew up in. She was 104.

Although the budget cuts to Valley and the rest of the School District weren’t far from his mind when he decided to retire, Montoya said his grandmother’s death was what prompted his retirement. “I can’t get over it,” he said. “I’ve got to quit.”

He plans to continue being the director of a local basketball tournament for promising college basketball recruits, but Montoya is uncertain about his future plans. He said he would always be a Valley Viking, however.

“I’m not dead yet,” he said. “I’ll be around.”

“Tu eres el mejor.”

By the early-2000s, Valley High School was a failing minority-majority school. Half of the students entering ninth grade couldn’t read at grade level.

Ten percent couldn’t read at all.

At the time, there was no reading program at the high school level, so Montoya implemented one, which he paired with a policy of no excuses.

It didn’t matter if the student was in special education, in the English Language Learner program or was one of about 20 refugees who attend Valley each year. Every student had to succeed, Montoya told his staff.

He created special after-school learning groups and Saturday tutoring sessions. He established an online classroom for students seeking remedial help.

He also started spreading his grandmother’s words of encouragement to every student.

“You are the best. You are smart. You will pass the ultimate test.”

Montoya would greet students as they got off the school bus, a habit he picked up from being an elementary school teacher. He would shake their hands, say good morning and encourage them.

“I think that man has shaken every student’s hand in that building at some time or another,” said Jodi Brant, the social studies department coordinator and 20-year veteran at Valley. “The kid might have been a gang banger or a druggie and Ron would still greet them the same as anybody else.”

Over time, those efforts translated into higher test results. Test scores — which hovered around the 30th percentile when Montoya started — steadily rose to above 80 percent in 2009.

That year, Valley became the first school in the district to receive a special designation under the federal No Child Left Behind for demonstrating big gains on test scores.

Although Valley had made adequate improvements in test scores three years in a row, it failed to do so this year.

Montoya — who went on to become the Nevada principal of the year and one of three finalists at the national level — attributes Valley’s academic success to his simple mantra.

“Life’s a matter of mind-set,” Montoya said, smiling. “If you’re told you suck every day, you’re going to act like it. If you’re told you’re smart and the best every day, you’re going to act like it and you can achieve in any challenge.”