By Jon Huang
Eric Lustig spent 10 years at Patriot Applied Learning Campus (formerly Patriot High School) in El Paso County Colorado School District 49, teaching math to alternative education students. He had been promised an opportunity to start a new career and technical education curriculum for business education; however, because of staffing turnover, Lustig said he had to continuously return to his former role after his replacements didn’t work out.
He said the director recognized that he was burned out.
“What were your jobs when you were young?” she asked Lustig. “I wanted to be a chef,” he replied.
Lustig then learned from the director that District 49 used to have a culinary program but had discontinued it. She believed that if they started a culinary arts program and added the necessary resources, the administration couldn’t turn down the proposal.
Thus, the Patriot High School Culinary Arts program was born.
Ten years later, on the eve of retirement, Lustig looks back on his two decades at the school with gratitude.
“God has helped me all the way through,” he said. “I wasn’t alone. God was with me. He’s been with me the whole time. Otherwise, I couldn’t have done this. I’m not good enough. I am not talented enough, and I was never motivated like I have been.”
As a child, he was never the self-motivated type, he said. Lustig grew up in Colorado and attended Doherty High School in Colorado Springs. His students often asked him if he had ever been suspended.
“No, I skipped that and went straight to expulsion,” Lustig said.
He described his upbringing as tough.
“There was divorce, and when the divorce happened, my home was absolute chaos, which led me to drugs and alcohol,” he said.
Beginning at age 16, Lustig worked full-time in the food and beverage industry while attending school, dreaming of running his own restaurant as a chef. However, the long hours and frenetic pace of the industry weren’t a good fit for him at the time.
After getting expelled, he enrolled in the Palmer night school program, an alternative education school for students who didn’t fit the traditional school structure, with four teachers and 120 kids.
Lustig said he was told that if he attended night school, he would never go to college. Yet, he felt divine providence disagreed.
“That was maybe part of God’s plan because in order for me to switch schools and do something different, I had to get expelled,” he said.
After high school, he went to California, where he attended college and studied business. Lustig worked as a school custodian and building supervisor, interacting regularly with staff and enjoying working with kids. He put in long hours, worked holidays, and loved what he did. Many teachers suggested he consider teaching.
Eventually, he sought a career that would allow him to raise a family. He applied for several business jobs without success but remembered the teachers who encouraged him to become a teacher and the four teachers and school administrator at Palmer night school who believed in him.
“God spoke to me. I didn’t hear His voice, but He spoke to me in that way,” Lustig said. “I didn’t realize it at that time, but now I look back and it was like a light switch. I went from not knowing what I wanted to do to saying, ‘I’m going to become a teacher.’ I visited two different college campuses that afternoon and inquired about their teaching programs, and within two weeks, I was signed up.”
Lustig worked in alternative education and eventually moved back to Colorado, where he joined Patriot High when it opened as an alternative education school in 2008. Drawing from his own experiences, he said working with at-risk students was a calling close to his heart.
“I went in with a commitment to myself that as long as this school is open and I’m working here, this is where I will work,” he said.
Lustig credits his faith in God for helping him through those early teaching years at Patriot High School and enabling him to use his past to connect, inspire and bless the students in his classroom.
His teaching career also enabled him to have the family he wanted. His wife, Holly Lustig, is a special education teacher in D 49. His daughter, once a student in D 49, is now 20 years old.
For Lustig, education is not just about teachers or classroom instruction; it is a community of adults responsible for raising its children.
“Everybody here — from our custodial staff to our security staff to everyone you run into — is, in my opinion, an educator,” he said.
As was the case in his own life, he sees education as more than just a diploma; it’s about developing skills for a lifetime. This perspective influenced how he created the culinary arts program.
Now, his classroom is the kitchen. Donning aprons and hairnets, students learn to bake bread and grill steaks. Lustig and his protégé, Hunter Smith (who will take over the program after this year), survey the kitchen, providing instruction — showing students how to season food by taste, measure meat doneness by touch, and finishing each session with presentations that receive critiques from Chef Eric and any school staff he pulls in from the hallways.
As a math teacher, he noted that many students were wary of algebra. “When are we ever going to use this?” they would ask him.
Instead of solving theoretical ‘x’ or ‘y,’ students see math in action. From measuring ingredients and calculating quantities to learning business principles, the program provides hands-on instruction in a professional kitchen setting. It also allows students to graduate with a Safe Serve certification, a standard industry food safety program from the National Restaurant Association.
Lustig relished the opportunity to give students a chance to express their creativity and skills in real, tangible ways — something not always available to students in traditional school settings.
“I’m going to teach you something today, and you’re going to produce something with it tomorrow,” he said.
Additionally, the program regularly cooks for churches, retirement parties, senior luncheons, weddings and various civic organizations. With up to four events a week, the program not only functions as a self-sustaining catering business but also provides a valuable service to the community that funds it.
As he retires, Lustig plans to stay involved with the culinary arts program in a limited capacity, using his community connections to help students find jobs, internships and additional opportunities outside of school. He is proud of having helped students land jobs at the Broadmoor and is grateful for the impact he has had on students over the years by mentoring them and opening doors that might not have otherwise been available.
“Just to see students succeed, to come back and point at me and say, ‘I am somebody because of you,’” he said.
