For 29 years, Julie Romanisko has been a guidance counselor at Pleasant Valley Intermediate School.

On May 22, her coworkers surprised her with a special something during the third-grade assembly at the end of the day.

PVIS Principal Sabrina Albright and her Assistant Principal Lauryn Bencker had submitted an application to the School Counselors of Northeastern Pennsylvania nominating Romanisko for School Counselor of the Year for 2026 — and she won.

“She’s just absolutely fabulous. She really is,” Albright said.

They know Romanisko is a humble person who shies away from the spotlight, so giving her the award would have to be a surprise. The problem was that hiding it was easier said than done. Romanisko is just so involved in everything in the school, Albright explained, even though she is the counselor assigned to the third grade and will stay with them as they go through intermediate school.

“We nominated her for this award because she’s so involved in our school culture,” Albright said.

Romanisko stays connected to all of the staff members whether they teach her students or not. “She’s touching base with them and keeping up with what they’re doing. She’s a counselor for the whole entire building,” Albright said.

“Actually as we were trying to get this organized, some of the teachers were talking about how she can almost like predict who’s going to need them and then just appears there. She’s got that like sixth sense.”

The staff did manage to keep the award presentation a secret, and during that third-grade assembly, Jillian Paulus, the president of School Counselors of Northeastern Pennsylvania, presented a certificate and plaque to Romanisko for being named the NEPA’s School Counselor of the Year.

Paulus said her board looks at three domains of school counseling — career, academic and social emotional development. Paulus said the nomination of Romanisko was “very glowing, not only emphasizing what she does in the school and how she is with the children, but how she’s a cultural architect. Saying how much she gives back to the community not just as a counselor, just as a person, her personality.”

“We really felt that as a board that spoke to all the qualities of a school counselor,” she said. “We were super excited to come here and surprise her.”

Romanisko certainly was surprised.

A group of children read reasons why they are thankful for Romanisko. “Thank you for helping us feel loved and safe at school.” and “Thank you for teaching us ways to handle our feelings,” were a couple of the reasons.

Albright announced the award, and the room erupted in cheers. Romanisko became teary eyed.

Later after all the hoopla, Romanisko said she became emotional because “it’s certainly an honor. It’s nice to know I have administrators that respect me and appreciate the job that I’m doing.”

Ever since she was in elementary school, Romanisko said she knew she wanted to be a school counselor one day.

“I had a little bit of a separation anxiety from my mom in early elementary school. I had a school counselor that just was really instrumental in helping turn that around to a love of school, and so from that very early age that’s what I wanted, to be able to do that for other kids. He was my inspiration,” she said.

Now, she’s the inspiration.