Future Focused Education’s founder and former Executive Director is retiring from his current position as Director of Future Focused’s policy arm, Instituto del Puente. Even though Future Focused is well-equipped to keep up the good work, he will be missed. But, as everyone who knows Tony knows, this doesn’t mean his fight for New Mexican youth is over. When he’s not riding his bicycle or writing his memoir—two of the things he’ll be focusing on during retirement—Tony will continue to advocate for youth and plans on mentoring young men of color in particular. 

We all know Tony professionally, but we wanted to take the opportunity to share more about the man who started Future Focused way back in 2015. 

Tony grew up in Albuquerque, the son of a Sicilian American airman from New Jersey and a Mexican American beautician with deep family roots in New Mexico and Southern Colorado dating back to before 1717. 

Reflecting on his family and heritage, Tony says, “My dad was an accomplished light heavyweight Golden Gloves boxer who made it to the semifinals of the Air Force Championships. My uncles were hard-bitten sheep and barley farmers from the San Luis Valley in Southern Colorado—the coldest and windiest place in the United States. Together, they were tough people from unforgiving places.” 

As a kid, Tony and his brother spent a lot of time with their grandparents, Jose and Alice Valdez, on their farm near La Jara, Colorado. He looked up to his grandfather and described vivid memories of learning from him on the farm. 

“He took me, my brother, and cousins with him during the spring months to bottle feed the “pencos” or orphaned lambs,” says Tony. “My grandfather was a shepherd caring for the most vulnerable members of his flock.” 

Later, Tony found out that as a young man, his grandfather had gotten into a fist fight with the manager of a segregated movie theater for refusing to sit in the balcony, which was reserved for Mexicans. He was run out of town and ended up joining the Army and fighting in World War I. 

“He fought for justice and cared for the weak,” says Tony. “I wanted to live up to his legacy.” 

When he was just nine years old, Tony’s mother died tragically, leaving his father to raise Tony and his younger brother. 

“After my mom died, my dad, brother, and I were alone and economically and emotionally unstable,” says Tony. ”I remember feeling ashamed about the holes in my shoes and the raggedness of my clothes.” 

Times were tough, especially since Tony’s father was a school teacher left to raise his sons alone on a teacher’s salary. It was during this time that Tony found solace in the local Catholic church. 

“I was searching for some kind of stability, and it was a community that was a cultural reinforcement and sanctuary,” says Tony. “It was full of brown parishioners that looked like my mother, grandparents, and cousins.” 

Eventually, Tony’s father remarried, and the family was not as financially precarious, but the experience shaped Tony, and he continues to be a man of faith, despite struggling with a lot of the Catholic church’s doctrines. 

“Faith is simple if you allow it to be,” says Tony. “And if you are paying attention, God will show up in the eyes of a stranger.”

Tony graduated from Highland High School and then from New Mexico State University. Although his parents, Tony and Nancy Monfiletto, were both beloved educators in Albuquerque, Tony says he struggled to find his own stride in school until he went to Syracuse University. There, a rigorous graduate program in government taught him he could handle challenging work.

“I learned how to use my mind,” Tony says. “ It was proof that I could do intellectually hard things if I was willing to sacrifice.” 

Syracuse is also where Tony met and fell in love with his wife, Laurie. After Tony finished his degree, Tony and Laurie spent three years in Chicago before returning to New Mexico, where he worked on public school finance for the state legislature. Four years in, however, he felt the pull of the hierarchy.

"I was getting antsy," Tony admitted. "I didn’t think I would be happy within that system."

So Tony left his government job to become a substitute teacher at Highland High School, his alma mater. There, he found his true calling: working with students often overlooked by the system.

"The kids were a constant revelation to me," he said. "I gravitated to the students who didn’t fit the stereotype of success."

Realizing Highland High School wasn’t evolving fast enough for its changing demographics, Tony eventually left and co-founded Amy Biehl High School with his friend and colleague, Tom Siegel. As New Mexico’s first startup charter school, it was built on a vision of civic education, college prep, and real-world capstone projects.

"We knew what we wanted the school to do, then we set out to find a young person to name it after," Tony said. They chose Amy Biehl, a social justice champion who had graduated from Santa Fe High School and whose life embodied their mission.

The school struggled at first. Or, as Tony puts it: “It was a disaster.”

“Because I was the leader of the school, I let myself become an agent of an uncaring system that often resorts to ‘accountability’ rather than admitting that the model and strategy being implemented doesn’t work.”

What eventually helped turn the school around was learning about models of care and concern and focusing on culture and support systems–something Tony learned from colleagues he met at a conference.  “I had never been exposed to the principle that high expectations require high levels of support,” explains Tony.

So, he started thinking about changing the culture of the school and designing it backward from the social and emotional needs of the students instead of only focusing on the academic skills needed to pass college classes. 

“It changed the way I saw my role,” says Tony. And it started him on his commitment to transforming education in New Mexico. After Amy Biehl, Tony helped start the leadership high schools in Albuquerque: Technology, Ace, Siembra, and Health Leadership high schools. From there, he went on to start the Center for School Leadership–what would eventually become Future Focused Education. Back then, Future Focused was a handful of employees in Albuquerque with a lot of heart. Now, over 25 highly accomplished staff members are devoted to improving education for New Mexico’s youth by partnering with young people and their communities to reimagine the school experience. 

In his last few years at Future Focused, Tony returned to his roots, listening to young people and advocating for what they need as Director of Instituto del Puente, Future Focused’s policy arm. Dr. Kim Lanoy-Sandoval, a former teacher with over 25 years of experience, stepped into the Executive Director role in 2024. 

“Over the past decades, Tony has built an incredibly solid foundation for educational changes in this state,” says Kim. “I’m very grateful for his mentorship, friendship, energy, and drive for the things he’s accomplished and moved forward while centering New Mexico’s young people.”

As the Instituto Director, Tony has helped convene and connect students, teachers, administrators, and community members with legislators across the state to ensure education policy reflects what is actually needed on the ground. During the 2026 legislative session, Instituto was part of the statewide coalition efforts to secure more funding for paid internships and re-engagement internship programs to improve attendance and graduation rates. 

“The most important thing a founder can do is plan for the time when they are gone,” Tony says. “We need organizations with deep commitment to young people and communities and we need for them to persist over time. I feel great about leaving knowing that Future Focused is so well positioned to make a difference in New Mexico.”