{"id":293512,"date":"2019-02-08T06:06:56","date_gmt":"2019-02-07T20:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=293512"},"modified":"2019-02-08T06:06:56","modified_gmt":"2019-02-07T20:06:56","slug":"pladevega-is-2019-state-counselor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/pladevega-is-2019-state-counselor\/","title":{"rendered":"Pladevega is 2019 State Counselor"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Jillian Pladevega, Hopwood Middle School department head for counseling, center, poses for a photo with Education Commissioner Glenn Mu\u00f1a, Hopwood principal Rizalina Liwag, Board of Education member Andrew Orsini, BOE public school representative Paul Miura, and Public School System associate commissioner Yvonne R. Pangelinan yesterday at the Pacific Islands Club Saipan.\u00a0(Erwin Encinares)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A counselor from the Herbert G. Hopwood Middle School was named yesterday as the 2019 CNMI State Counselor.<\/p>\n

Jillian Pladevega, a Hopwood counselor for six years now, was declared the state Counselor of the Year awardee in a ceremony at the Pacific Islands Club Saipan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a blessing,\u201d Pladevega said in an interview. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be able to stay in this position without the help and support of my counseling team and [the Hopwood] administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pladevega, who graduated from the Northern Marianas College in 2009 and started out her career in the PSS Head Start program, is also the department chair of the counseling department at Hopwood, which has four counselors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes more than just me. [Counseling] takes a lot out of you and, just like teachers, we need a lot of help. If you have a very supportive administration\u2026even though we are not in the same building, they are still a support system,\u201d she said, referring to Hopwood principal Rizalina Liwag, PSS associate commissioner for Student and Support Services Boni R. Pangelinan, and her three counseling colleagues at Hopwood.<\/p>\n

Part of being a counselor, according to Pladevega, includes the varying scenarios a day\u2019s work can bring.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach day is very different in the counseling life,\u201d she said. \u201cYou have to be ready for whatever hits you.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I can be with a student for hours and sometimes I can be with multiple students for under an hour.\u201d Patience is key. \u201cMaking sure that [students] feel that they can come up to you is very important,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Pangelinan describes Pladevega as \u201cenergetic and always into new ideas and learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is one of the counselors who is really on board with trying new things and becoming better at what she does,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are very pleased and happy that she has been given this recognition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pangelinan noted that it can be difficult to be a counselor at the middle school level since it is usually the gap between being children and being an adolescent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many changes physically and emotionally [during this stage], so it really takes a lot of heart to be a school counselor at this level,\u201d Pangelinan said.<\/p>\n

Education Commissioner Glenn Mu\u00f1a noted in a separate interview that, while he had been in contact with Pladevega only in a professional setting, based on their two- to three-year working relationship, he believes she is very approachable.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is always very bubbly, always very understanding,\u201d said Mu\u00f1a. \u201cEven though I don\u2019t know her much [outside of the professional setting], it\u2019s like we\u2019ve known each other forever\u2014that\u2019s how easy it is to get along with her,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe really cares for the students that she serves and is very passionate about her job.\u201d
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A counselor from the Herbert G. Hopwood Middle School was named yesterday as the 2019…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":293513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-293512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}