WFLA Remarkable Woman finalist Tina Miller: Helping teens achieve life milestones
NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. (WFLA) ꟷ Tina Miller dedicates her life to dozens of young people by helping them achieve a life goal they once believed was out of reach.
Inside an unassuming Pinellas County church, amazing, life-changing transformations are taking place.
It’s music day at Victory High School. And these teens hammer out the rhythms on the drums and guitar, school founder Tina Miller, looks on, and sees her younger self in these students. Her similar experience is the basis for her mission.
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“I actually created high schools that I needed as a teenager,” she explains. “I am a survivor of childhood trauma, and rape and domestic violence, and addictions, and so I struggled with learning disabilities, and ADHAD, and barely passed through high school.”
Tina was also a class clown, with a gift for gab. This also contributed to her will to survive.
“What I realized is, that was my gift for the world, to actually help people through all their adversities and struggles and so that’s what I did.”
A career in education, social work, and juvenile justice put Tina in contact with many teens battling addiction and failing in school. “And I realized there needed to be a school open for these young people. That they have a safe, healing-centered environment where they can receive mental health services and recover support in that education, she says, “and that’s what we do here at Victory High school.”
Tina jumped in with both feet and gave up her job, which led to the opening in April of 2021 of the first Victory High in in New Port Richey in Pasco County. A second Victory High opened recently in St. Petersburg.
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The schools provide teachers, a licensed mental health counselor, behavior specialists, a caregiver advocate, and lots of volunteers, and offers electives like music, art, and equine therapy. All with the goal of helping all these young people graduate and resume a path to success.
Her students explain why they think Tina is so remarkable. Students like James – once addicted and dealing drugs, and unsuccessful in residential treatment. “I really thought I wasn’t going to amount to anything,” he recalls. “I really didn’t expect I would make it to seventeen. I thought I was going to overdose by fifteen. I eventually came here and once I really started putting in the work, I realized maybe I can do a thing or two.”
James graduated, enrolled in college, and now mentors current victory students.
Before enrolling in Victory, Gabe was also losing his battle to stay in school. “I got to a point where I just wasn’t going to school. I was like, scared,” he says. But now he believes, “It’s like a place where you are supported – supported through and through.”
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18-year-old Gladys had begun abusing alcohol when she was just fourteen. “Most people just usually give up on kids like us, that have started down this really dark path. But Miss Tina somehow, I just truly think it’s like the amount of hope and kindness and motivation that she has that she has been able to build this place. I am incredibly grateful.”
Tina Miller’s work is hardly finished. Her ultimate goal is to open a Victory High school in every one of Florida’s 67 counties. A truly remarkable mission.
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