A warm inviting atmosphere is present as her room is approached. The room smells like vanilla and a warm ivory color coats the walls. Paintings of colorful succulents fill the walls. A bowl of pink Starbursts and Dove chocolate fill the fishbowl that lies on her desk. Her deep laugh can be heard echoing down the halls.

Stephanie Doczi is a new face at West Campus, who started at the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year. Despite only being at MCHS for a short time, Doczi’s presence has not gone unnoticed.

“She is a team player and she helps students without hesitation very effectively,” said Curtis Menke, one of Doczi’s fellow counselors at West Campus. “I look forward to her being a member of our team for a long time.”

Doczi works with students from the alphabet break of JJ to MA and also works with the  English language learners population. Doczi is bilingual and focuses her time working with the ELL.

“She as a counselor has helped me with all of my troubles with figuring out classes and putting my best interest when I had really bad schedule problems,” said Valentina Londono, a senior at West Campus and one of Doczi’s students. “She helped me drop a class that was putting a lot of mental and emotional strain on me and I’m really grateful for her support and help.”

In addition to Doczi being a new counselor, she has also recently become a new mother. She had her baby, a healthy baby boy, Christian Doczi on Dec. 29.

“The first couple weeks were tough because I had my baby on my mind and it was sad to leave him at daycare,” Doczi said. “Trying to come here and separate those feelings from my mind was difficult, but it gets easier every day,¨ said Doczi.

She is new to West Campus and previously worked in a different career within the county.

Due to her previous position with the McHenry County Public of Health where she worked with new and single mothers, Doczi is highly experienced working with families and adolescents. This led her to show great strides while working in a high school atmosphere.

¨Her experience in the county and in the role of helping different families with more urgent needs made her such a viable candidate. It gave a different skill set and experience to our team which is needed,¨ said Menke.

Doczi has had many different tasks she has had to juggle with her newly born child and her labor-intensive career. She uses time management schedules to plan out her day to make sure she completes all of the tasks she needs to.

Menke said being a mom has not changed Doczi’s work ethic one bit. If anything, it has made her even better at connecting with her students. Doczi fits right in with the rest of the crew.

“She’s awesome, she’s fun, she has a great sense of humor and that’s something in our hallway and team that we really pride ourselves on,” said Menke. “It´s been as seamlessly as it could be for her first year.”