Katie Monteiro is the 2025 ESP of the Year
Katie Monteiro is the 2025 ESP of the Year
Katherine Monteiro, a proud union activist and talented educator, is the 2025 MTA Education Support Professional of the Year.
Monteiro, a registered behavioral technician, works with autistic students in Weymouth elementary schools. She has held many leadership roles in her local, the Weymouth Educators' Association, including her current position as secretary.
WEA President Michael Murphy said that Monteiro had become involved in the union very soon after she joined, more than eight years ago. "She was a natural go-getter," he said. Monteiro was on a union representative council and then the executive committee and was the chair of the unit for Education Support Professionals in the last contract round.
Through her leadership skills, she bargained the best Unit D Collective Bargaining Agreement the ESPs have ever had in Weymouth," Murphy said, in a letter supporting her for ESP of the Year. "She was even able to persuade the town to agree to sponsoring an ESP mentoring program, one of the first in the state. Currently, she is working with the MTA on this very issue to make it a statewide initiative."
"She organized silent representatives to come to the negotiating sessions, too. Twenty five to 30 people came to each bargaining session over the course of two years,' Murphy added.
Monteiro is a mentor to other emerging ESP leaders in the ESP leadership mentoring program. Last weekend, she was at MTA headquarters in Quincy for a mentor program training when others lured her down to the surprise by telling her it was time for lunch.
"I'm completely honored and humbled at the same time," Monteiro said about the surprise announcement. "I never expected this designation to come to me so it's really special."
Weymouth library ESP Lisa Wiklund submitted a glowing letter nominating Monteiro as ESP of the Year. Wiklund wrote about Monteiro speaking out for better policies for both students and educators, noting that "She wants all all our students to get what they need to succeed, and works daily to make it happen."
Wilkund also wrote about Monteiro's deep commitment to union work which she conducts with a "professional demeanor and also a great sense of humor and respect for everyone's input and point of view."
"Katie is an extraordinary human being, and brings that, every day, to her many roles as an ESP in Weymouth," Wilkund wrote. "She has a profound and positive effect on everyone she meets and every task she takes on, and she never loses her sense of humor or humility. I cannot think of anyone more deserving of this recognition, and she is an inspiration to us all."
Joni Cederholm, who was the 2019 ESP of the Year, said Monteiro was skilled in negotiating. "She's so great at the table," said Cederholm, also a Weymouth educator. "She picked up negotiating very quickly."
Monteiro will be honored at the MTA ESP Conference in Southbridge on April 5-6.