Karina Pleitez

Karina Pleitez, AM ’13, knew two things about what she wanted for her career: She wanted to work in service of others, and that her path there would — in her words — go through the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice “or nothing.”

Pleitez is currently Director of Operations at Vertex Partnership Academies in the Bronx in New York City. Vertex is a candidate school for the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme. But her journey started years prior when she worked as an intern at University of Chicago Hospitals while in high school. It was then that she fell in love with the UChicago campus and would eventually land there after attending Georgetown University, where she spent two years as a nursing major before transferring to the sociology program.

Attending both a Jesuit high school and university for undergrad, Pleitez says she was focused on doing good work for people, finding herself attracted to the policy track in the Social Work Master’s Program at the Crown Family School because she was able to focus on education in particular.

Between her first and second year in the program, she interned during the opening of a new charter middle school in New York called KIPP NYC, an organization she became familiar with during her undergraduate and graduate years. “I knew I'd eventually permanently relocate to New York, so it was a perfect fit for as far as field of interest and location,” she says, noting her plans to join her then-fiancé in the city. After completing her master’s degree, Pleitez moved to New York and worked as a community relations and alumni associate for a K-8 charter school in Brooklyn, following students through high school and college to see how and what they were doing, and what support they needed after graduating from the network.

She transitioned to a different charter school network, working at an all-girls middle school as director of high school admissions, helping students get their foot in the door at strong high schools, be they public, private, parochial, or boarding schools.

“That's where I really learned how limited a lot of their options were here in the Bronx,” Pleitez says. “And how difficult the system is to get access to schools that are outside of their own districts. I had to tell a valedictorian once that she couldn't apply to a school that was in a particular district in Manhattan because they wouldn't allow students outside of the district to enroll.”

The experience made her interested in joining as a founding staffer of Vertex, a charter system with the mission of being “dedicated to equality of opportunity, individual dignity, and our common humanity.” Vertex is a partnership with her previous employer, Public Prep Academies, and Brilla Public Charter School. She knew Vertex was in the works for a few years and knew she wanted to be involved, initially hired as community service director — International Baccalaureate programs require students participate in community service — but was instead tapped to take on the Director of Operations position.

Her time at UChicago helped equip her for the role, and she cites discussions in Melissa Roderick’s class in particular. Roderick, the Hermon Dunlap Smith Professor at the UChicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, was a lead researcher on the project “Potholes on the Road to College,” a study that explored the extent to which indicators of the college-going climate of urban high schools are associated with students’ application to, enrollment in, and choice among four-year colleges. After learning everything that needs to fall in place in terms of support and knowledge for such students to access college or a career program, Pleitez says she knew she wanted to assist students through the process. “I wanted to make sure that they are able to reach their goals and get the support that they need, whatever that might look like,” she says. “That's what really made me excited about helping found a high school here in the Bronx.”

Part of that means helping students move past doubt — something she herself had to overcome. “I was actually scared to apply to UChicago because my undergraduate transcript wasn't perfect and I was the first person in my family to go to college, my parents couldn't guide me through it,” she says. “But my growth, my experiences, and my recommendation letters really supported me in that way. For prospective students: I would say not to shy away from something because of a fear of rejection. It's the same mindset that I used in accepting my current role, to not be afraid of taking a challenge — because you don't know how great it might end up in the end.”