PRINCIPAL CONNECTS WITH TROUBLED KIDS — HE WAS ONE
Hilltop Middle’s new leader learned from doing poorly in school
Luis Aparicio is the first to admit he was not a model student.
The Tijuana native moved to Kansas City, Mo., at age 12, following his parents’ split. He found himself in a new country, unfamiliar with the culture and language, and far from friends and family. It was a shock, Aparicio recalled, so he lashed out by doing poorly in school.
“I was the typical kid that teachers hated, or did not like, or did not want in their classroom,” Aparicio said, recalling that he would talk in class and talk back to teachers.
In middle and high school he ditched classes for days, sometimes weeks, at a time. By his senior year he was kicked out of high school for missing so many days.
Aparicio never imagined ending up back in school in the shoes of the educators he rebelled against as a child. But that’s what happened.
Aparicio, 47, was promoted to principal at Hilltop Middle School in Chula Vista earlier this month, after being an assistant principal at the middle school and at Hilltop High School and working 10 years as a teacher.
He uses his experiences and struggles to connect with students, especially those having a hard time adjusting to being back in school in person or those dealing with problems at home that are hurting their academics, some parents say.
“I have worked with kids who are needy and are not the most functional,” he said. “But because I was that child 25 ... 30 years ago, I’ve always had that passion and that patience and that desire to, number 1, stop them from going down that path, and number 2, open up opportunities for them.”
Last week he visited classrooms and stopped to talk to kids at lunchtime, his typical routine to gain their trust, he said.
Hilltop Middle has an enrollment of nearly 900 students, but only 20 percent are back in school, attending on staggered days of the week.
Aparicio never planned to become a teacher, let alone a principal. He refers to it as a “divine accident.”
He was a rebellious kid, he said. He remembers making
some teachers miserable while disrupting and acting out in class. He missed so much school, it cost him his high school diploma.
At 18 he moved to San Diego and began working as a barber in Coronado. Though he was making a decent living, several of his clients — judges, lawyers, and architects — urged him to go back to school. At 25 he also had a wife and child to support.
He felt he wasn’t doing anything meaningful for his future, so he got his diploma from San Ysidro Adult School and enrolled at Southwestern College and eventually transferred to San Diego State University.
At first he took speech and computer literacy classes. He got A’s and thought it was because they were easy classes, he said. Then he took math, English and science classes and still got A’s, and he began to believe in himself, he said.
It took him seven years to graduate from college. He planned to become an engineer but changed his mind and decided to become a teacher to give back to the community.
“I had convinced myself that hard work and determination — and having someone to guide you even through dysfunctionalities — you could get places,” he said. “Education kind of became the equalizer for me.”
Aparicio worked as a teacher at Southwest High for about 10 years, teaching math and social sciences. He approached the job with a heightened awareness of students he saw struggling in class.
He often pulled students who were acting out aside, to discuss what challenges they were dealing with outside of school. He understood, because of his own experience, that often kids misbehave because they are dealing with issues at home or in the community.
He routinely tutored students and tried to help them find solutions to personal problems.
Aparicio was later promoted to attendance coordinator, then assistant principal because of his ability to connect with students, he said.
His inf luence on students at Hilltop Middle has not gone unnoticed.
Brian Svane, a parent of two girls at the middle school, said Aparicio cares and wants to make a difference. Svane said he was impressed by the amount of communication Aparicio has with parents, most recently about returning to inperson learning.
“People like him are going to be our first defense to help our kids have brighter futures,” Svane said. “He is the person you want running the school.”
Though Aparicio doesn’t always share details of his challenges growing up, he opens up about his past with students he believes need help.
“I think it’s key that we share experiences with the sole purpose of building them up,” he said.
Educators across the country face a daunting challenge as students return to school in person, he said. Aparicio acknowledges that as a new principal, he faces a “steep learning curve.”
“The more you know and the more experienced you are, the more creative you can get,” he said. “That is my area of growth, but I’m trying my best to grow as fast as possible.”
He says he has learned patience and determination throughout his life and career, and those skills will prove useful for his students.