After Council Oak Montessori
Council Oak graduates have attended high schools all around Chicago, from Southside locals such as Brother Rice, Marist, Morgan Park High School, Morgan Park Academy, and Mother McAuley to citywide schools such as St. Ignatius and Whitney Young.
Likewise, graduates have attended colleges and graduate schools locally and around the country, from local institutions such as the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, the University of Chicago, Northern Illinois University, St. Xavier University, and Harold Washington College, to those out-of-state, such as Syracuse University, Eckerd College, St. John’s College Annapolis, UCLA, Reed College, and the University of Tennessee.
Graduates work in a wide variety of fields, suiting their individual personalities, abilities, and interests. These include electrical engineers, firemen and policemen, marine researchers, early childhood teachers, philanthropic administrators, automotive mechanics, dancers, psychologists, and visual artists.
Alexciana Castaneda
Alexciana is an Honor student at De La Salle. She is currently applying for the National Honor Society and French National Honor Society. Alexciana is involved with the following activities at De La Salle: Softball, City of De La Salle (student council), S.A.D.D. (Students Against Destructive Decisions), Science club, French Club (class representative), Theatre
Jacob Munoz
Jacob is a senior at Brother Rice High School. He is in all AP and Honors classes. He volunteers as a lector at our church parish, St. Christopher – He spent one week over the last two summers volunteering in Rutledge, TN helping migrant workers and their children’s summer camp program with a group of volunteers. Jacob is the editor-in-chief of BR’s newspaper, The Standard – This is Jacob’s second year as editor-in-chief of BR’s yearbook – Jacob is the official “tweeter” for BR’s home football and basketball games – This is Jacob’s fourth year in NHS and last year he was the vice-president – Jacob received the recognition of being an Illinois State Scholar this year – Jacob is in the top ten percentile of his senior class – Jacob scored in the 99th percentile on the ACT! Jacob plans to study journalism in college – he applied to 10 universities (alphabetical order): Boston University, Georgetown University, Northwestern University, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, University of Missouri-Columbia, University of Notre Dame, University of Southern California, University of Washington and Lee, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Yale University. So far Jacob was awarded the following scholarships: University of Michigan Presidential Scholarship, University of Missouri Mark Twain Scholarship and Walter Williams Scholar Invitation for School of Journalism, the Deans Scholarship at University of Southern California and was accepted into the Honors College at the University of Missouri. He is unsure of where he will be attending school in the fall until he finds out all of the universities in which he’s been admitted.
Matt Powers
Matt Powers currently attends Moraine Valley Community College, majoring in automotive mechanics. He plans to transfer to SIU. Matt works for a security company working for Wrigley Field, Soldier Field, Toyota Park and many more venues.
Kurt Shelby
Chicago High School for the Arts (ChiArts)
Plays guitar, bass violin, and piano in four bands, including CPS All City Jazz Band.
“I want to learn it all.” – Kurt
“That desire and hunger for knowledge came from COMS…..COMS provided my family with a “family” to assist in educating and rearing my children, for that, I will be forever grateful!” – Donna Shelby, Kurt’s mom
David Power
Council Oak Graduate, 2007
Brother Rice High School, Merit Scholarship, 2011
Student, Loyola University
Bachelor’s of Music Business from Western Illinois University
After working for over a year with the Knox-Galesburg Symphony as their Marketing and Operations coordinator, Dave decided to return to the Chicagoland area and currently works for Council Oak Montessori School.
Stephen Cobb
Stephen Cobbs graduated from Luther High School South in 2007 Graduated Cum Laude with a B.A. in Sociology from Langston University. M.A. in Political Science-International Relations from University of Central Oklahoma. Currently, he works at the St. Anthony Hospital ER. Stephen is applying for Immigration Services Officer with Department of Homeland Security, wanting to move up in the ranks and help improve the immigration process to help those in need.
Jarredd Cochran
Morgan Park High School, 2004
University of Tennessee, B.A. Law Enforcement, 2010
Sales, Loews Hotels, Memphis, TNS
Kathryn Lett
Forum High School for the Arts, 2003
A.A., Arts, Harold Washington College, 2007
Gemological Institute of America (G.I.A.) Certificate in Diamonds Program, 2011
Diamond Specialist, Sheffner’s Jewelry, Chicago
Brian Rosin
Whitney Young High School, 2004
B.A. Columbia College, 2008
DJ, Booking & Management, Frequency DJ, Chicago, IL
Rory Cox
Morgan Park Academy, 2003
Columbia College, B.A. Fiction Writing, 2009
Firefighter/EMT, Chicago Fire Department
Cate Conroy
Whitney Young High School, 2000
Syracuse University, B.S. Television, Radio, and Film, 2004
Director of Marketing, Giveforward.org
Volunteer at Bear Necessities Pediatric Cancer Foundation
Ben Brienzo
Marist High School, 1999
B.S. Electrical Engineering,
DeVry University, 2005
Electrical Engineer, Sencon, Bedford Park, IL
John Enright
H.S. Morgan Park Academy, 2000
B.S. Aerospace Engineering, UIUC, 2004
Ph.D. Aerospace Engineering, UCLA, 2008
John J Enright Professional Website
Research Scientist, Kiva Systems Woburn, MA
“The teachers at Council Oak encouraged us to pursue the work we were drawn to and cultivated a relationship of mutual respect, so they rarely had to tell us what to do, since we wanted to please them. We didn’t see school work as a daily burden, but as a daily fulfilling activity. I felt pride in my work and excitement at the prospect of progress. I’ve always been a very visual thinker. I’d imagine objects in motion bouncing off one another, or relationships of geometric objects fitting together. I wouldn’t close my eyes, I’d just kind of stare off and out of focus, gauging the problems and wrapping my mind around them. Much to my content, the teachers at Council Oak recognized these sessions as something other than idleness, and let me be. Traditional schooling doesn’t allow for this kind of unstructured time for unstructured thinking.”
Gus Kampf - Lassin
Whitney Young High School, 2000
Reed College, 2004
Masters in progress,
University of Chicago Social Sciences Preceptor,
Master of Arts Program, Social Sciences, University of Chicago
Brandice Manuel
Chicago Academy for the Arts, 1999
Howard University, Dance, 2003
Dancer, PureART Organization and Aquastar Productions