PRESCOTT – With the departure of Matt Smith from the role of Prescott High School assistant principal and activities director, the administration decided to split Smith’s former responsibilities into two job positions: An activities and athletics director, now filled by Andrew Caudill, and a dean of students, which will be filled by Rick Montreal.

Josh Fiege, principal at PHS, spoke on why the administration felt the need to split the role into two.

“We didn't feel that combination worked well since that person was always living in two worlds. The dean of students is the new iteration of our assistant principal and will be focused on building student relationships, student and family engagement, behavior management, working with our staff and students on building culture,” said Fiege.

Montreal previously taught sixth grade social studies at New Richmond Middle School for 20 years before landing his role as the first ever dean of students at PHS. Montreal recently received his administration license before applying for the job.

“I was just hoping to get a leadership position and landing the dean of students opportunity has offered me the chance to take that angle of leadership and working with kids and students within the student population, not just the athletic side, but the whole encompassing part of the high school,” said Montreal.

As the dean position is brand new to PHS, Montreal has the opportunity to help create some of the new role’s responsibilities. Above all else, Montreal’s top goal is to help serve all students at PHS.

“My number one goal coming in, is to strengthen the culture of the student body,” Montreal said. “My primary goal is serving the students and I'm hopeful to do that in a number of different capacities, ranging from programs on social, emotional learning, to potentially mental health initiatives and things like that, because I want to be there for the student body. I'm also going to be dealing with some of the disciplinary issues of a student population as well. But my vision for the actual position is just to serve the students, and all students nine through 12, at Prescott High School.”

Fiege and the PHS administration decided Montreal was the best person for the job. “Rick Montreal brought a lot of the skills and traits we were looking for from our dean position. His experiences working with both middle school and high school students both in the classroom and in a coaching capacity aligned with our needs. He showed our interview teams someone who was thoughtful and empathetic to students, who had a great ability to create relationships, and who had a clear vision for what his role in the building would be,” said Fiege.

Switching from a daily middle school environment to high school will be a bit of a change for Montreal; however, he is looking forward to working with an older demographic of young adults and helping them develop into mature and productive people.

“The high school element of the everyday routine is certainly going to be a little bit different for me. What I'm looking forward to, quite honestly, is building more types of adult relationships with the young adults in high school, versus kind of the young adults of the middle school; it's just a different world,” said Montreal.

While Montreal was at New Richmond, he coached the high school boys’ basketball team for 15 years. Currently, Montreal is not planning to take on any coaching roles for the current school year at PHS, but hopes to keep that door open if a coaching opportunity presents itself in the future.

Fiege also shared his hopes for what Montreal will do with the new dean of students role at PHS.

“I am hopeful that he will help create the positive school culture and engagement with students that COVID made so much more difficult. I believe with his partnership we will be able to offer more to students, and coach them to live within our core values as a district,” said Fiege.

Montreal officially begins his new role in August.