Sydney Piras, a counselor in the White Pony Center, recently won High School Counselor of the Year. She has been working at the high school for 3 years and has worked hard to improve the school and to help students.

Piras received her award on Nov. 6 at the annual Minnesota School Counselor Association conference. Counselors all around Minnesota go there to learn, meet other counselors and recognize the School Counselors of the Year.

“Minnesota School Counseling Association has an annual conference every fall with a lot of professional development and light lessons that we go to, workshops. And then part of that is an awards recognition banquet,” Piras said.

MSCA gives out four awards yearly, Elementary, Middle, High School and the overall Counselor of the Year and they named Piras, High School Counselor of the Year. The awards are used to recognize school counselors for all they do for students and their schools.

“We can advocate to make sure that students have access to qualified licensed school counselors in the state of Minnesota in their individual schools,” Dawn Mensing, MSCA Awards Chair said.

MSCA is the Minnesota branch of the American School Counselor Association. ASCA is similar to MSCA, but celebrated counselors all over the nation instead of just state-wise.

“The Minnesota School Counselor Association has been around for 60 years. We are the state division of the American School Counselor Association,” Mensing said.

To become a counselor of the year, they must be nominated. Anyone can nominate a counselor, although a lot goes into being nominated and considered for counselor of the year.

“Anyone can nominate you. And then once you get nominated, someone gets put in charge or puts themselves in charge of all your nomination stuff. And it has to have letters of recommendation from students, staff, principals and admin,” Piras said.

Not only was being nominated for the award incredible, but Piras was able to read the application. She was able to see all the amazing things people said about her.

Piras said she was very inspired by the kind words said about her. The impact she and other counselors have and the acknowledgement given to her.

The award gives light and honors the person who won the award along with honoring school counselors in general. School counseling is a job that does not get a lot of recognition but these awards and MSCA give acknowledgement to school counselors.

“Our job is kind of unique, and not everyone always understands what we do. It’s cool to be honored with the people that do your work and know what your work is,” Piras said.

Besides being High School Counselor of the Year, Piras is also president of the East Suburban division of MSCA. Her role as president is to help plan professional development opportunities for counselors.

“It’s been really good to connect with colleagues and learn and hear what’s going on there. As well as, what are the good things happening, too, and celebrating those things. When people are doing good work in other places, let’s replicate that and see how that can work here,” Piras said.

In fact, Piras is different from every president of the East Suburban division before her for many reasons, specifically one. She is the last president of the East Suburban division.

“She will be our final president because the divisions are going away next year. We are changing our leadership structure so she will be our last president,” Mensing explained.

A lot of hard work and effort goes into getting to the place Piras is at right now. She has many strengths as a school counselor that are reflected in her award and her work.

“I would say she also is able to connect with students. I think students are able to feel comfortable and seek her out,” counselor Kristina King said.

Piras stood out to MSCA for many reasons. She was acknowledged and honored for her dedication to students and their families.

“She is willing to put herself out there a little more, I would say. And we can just tell through the letters that were written about Sydney that she really cares about everyone she works with,” Mensing said.

After her years as a school counselor and helping students, Piras has learned a lot. Some advice she has for future school counselors is to get “back to the basics from school counseling and what we are taught with ASCA and MSCA.”