UCLA student reunites with teachers who helped her recover and apply to college

A UCLA student stood face to face with the two Westview High School educators she says helped pull her back from a mental-health crisis, rebuild her confidence, and apply to college after she had stopped believing she had a future beyond high school.

Caitlynn Hauw said her path changed when counselor Vanessa Ho and journalism teacher Jeff Wenger noticed she was missing school for days at a time and kept reaching out. Hauw, who attended Westview High in San Diego, said she had been struggling privately while her mother, Vanessa Dang, raised four children as a single parent and fought breast cancer. Her high school years darkened further after she attempted suicide in December 2020, during her sophomore year, and was hospitalized.

What Ho and Wenger offered was not abstract encouragement. Hauw said they stayed in contact when she began disappearing from class, urged her not to give up, and made school feel survivable again. She told Ho that she could study under her office table, cry on the floor when needed, and even get rides from home if that was what it took to bring her back into school life. Wenger said Hauw was often absent for stretches, but when she showed up, she was highly engaged and curious.

That attention mattered because Hauw said she was not planning to apply to college. She described her transcript as a "shoddy transcript" and said she lacked the self-belief to imagine UCLA as a possibility. Ho and Wenger pushed against that collapse in confidence, and Hauw eventually applied and enrolled at UCLA, where she is now a student. She said the educators restored hope at a moment when she had little of it.

Hauw later described the pair as her "school mom and school dad" and read them a letter thanking them for the stability and confidence they gave her. The reunion, broadcast on CBS News on April 13, 2026, offered a clear lesson for schools facing a national youth mental-health crisis: the most effective support can be intensely personal, persistent, and practical, from repeated outreach to flexible spaces and a willingness to meet a student wherever she is.