Everyone has challenges. We’re human. 

But teens don’t realize that. 

They think they’re alone in their struggles. In their pain. 

And the students I work with have been through a lot. 

They carry a lot of trauma. 

Yet, I’m continuously amazed by how strong and resilient they are. 

My name is Stacy Zinman, and I am the school counselor at Envision High School, a CPLC Community School in Tucson, Arizona. I feel so fortunate and blessed to be able to help students realize their potential. I found my dream job here. 

A lot of the work I do is as much with families as it is with individual students. 

Each child comes with a family unit, and their home environment has a big influence on their academic success. 

When I start working closer with a student, I try to meet their family early in the process. By establishing this open communication, we can work together to identify barriers to their child’s academic success and address how to fix them. 

This could mean connecting parents to resources in the community they didn’t know about. Or, it could be as simple as helping them understand how to better communicate with their teen. 

Unfortunately, many of these families have a fractured parent-child relationship. 

These parents are used to receiving negative phone calls from schools over the years. It’s tainted the image they have of their own child, of what they’re capable of. 

It's the reason they chose to transfer their child to our school—we’re their last hope that something can change. 

When I realized this, I started doing something new: making positive phone calls. 

Each time I call a parent, I can hear them hold their breath, expecting to hear the latest complaint about their child. 

When I tell them something positive, they sigh in relief. 

The positive message is fresh. It’s healing. 

They start seeing their child as capable and worthy of recognition, and their brief, tense interactions turn into positive, encouraging conversations. 

At first, the student is surprised to see their efforts at school are being noticed. But it motivates them to keep working hard. 

Because for most of these students, their biggest barrier is not believing in themselves. 

Like Mark.* 

One day, he came into my office and told me, “Miss, my friends and the people I’m close to told me I’m not going to graduate. I can’t do it. It’s not something we do.” 

I told him, “Mark, you’re going to do it, and you’re going to prove them wrong. You have what it takes to get this done.” 

So, we sat down together, called each of his teachers, and made a plan on how he would complete his requirements. 

A year ago, he told me, “I want to quit.” 

This Thursday, he’s graduating. 

Despite everything Mark and his peers have been through, they are strong and resilient and capable of doing amazing things. 

And in each interaction, I try to make one message clear: they don’t have to go through it alone. 

Learn how we are helping other students like Mark through our Community High Schools.