Our community has many unsung heroes, including our very own AHS counselor, Ms. Zavala. Ms. Zavala is the counselor for the class of 2018, providing guidance for students to meet their goals and leading them down the right path to fulfill their dreams. The impact of her work can be seen through every student, as students are prepared to meet the requirements for graduation and are ready to attend college.

Ms. Zavala helps students in their endeavors by reaching out and showing them the variety of ways and resources students can utilize to realize their goals. She gives them positive, healthy, realistic choices they can make to accomplish their dreams. To Ms. Zavala, the most meaningful part of her job is being able to work with students, and guiding them to make good choices. Through her work, she helps students figure out their path to achieve their goals, opening appropriate, diverse pathways for them to reach their goal.

When it comes to why she chose counseling as her job, she was inspired even at her high school years. As a past alumni at Arcadia High School, she had a friend who had an astounding experience with her high school counselor. She claims that her friend’s counselor, “went above and beyond to help her graduate.” Inspired by this, she also took in her passion to aid middle and high school students, and chose the path to serve as a high school counselor. She wanted to fulfill that role of helping other students like her friend, to achieve their goal to graduate. Of course, her satisfying moment would be the outcome of her commitment and effort: acceptance into college. She feels thrilled when she hears news of her students getting accepted to their dream college, since her goal was for them to at least reach graduation. To her, a student’s happiness takes utmost value as well stating simply that, “ If they’re happy, I’m happy.”

In conclusion, after interviewing Ms. Zavala, we got to know more about her values and her motivations. Ms. Zavala’s has been continuing her meaningful job in guiding AHS students in finding their unique paths. Thank you Ms. Zavala for all your efforts!

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Photos by HaEUN PARK, NICOLE SOONG, and VERONICA YU

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