“Becoming a guidance counselor was the best decision I ever made.”

So said Gail Schor, one of 28 guidance counselors honored at the 29th annual School Counselor Recognition Day Awards ceremony held at Department of Education headquarters on May 27.

Schor, an educator for 44 years, said that she switched from physical education to counseling while at Cardozo HS in Bayside, Queens, “so I could get to be with kids on a different level and to be their advocate.” For the past four years, she has guided 500 members of the class of 2015 through to their graduation and the years ahead.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew praised the honorees for “your pivotal role in getting children ready to learn and the vital role you play in making this a better school system.”

During his years as a classroom teacher, Mulgrew said, “I couldn’t have done my job without your help.” He praised Chancellor Carmen Fariña for increasing the number of counselors by 250.

The chancellor, who acknowledged the importance of guidance counselors by recently founding the first Office of Guidance and School Counseling, thanked the honorees for “all the times you have saved my life.”

Riffing on Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem “How Do I Love Thee,” she chronicled: “I love you for holding the hands of kids, for keeping principals sane, for soothing and calming, for helping parents find special schools, for making sure of scholarships and for doing what’s best in a perplexing situation with no immediate solutions.”

Fariña added: “Your job doesn’t have a definition, and I love you for that.”

She also said that the system needed even more counselors.

The penchant of the honorees for going the extra mile to help students and was mentioned often. Take Mary Ellen Barnes, for example.

Barnes, who started her career as a special education teacher, has spent the last 22 years as a guidance counselor for autistic children at PS 255 in Queens.

The matriarch of a family of skiers, Barnes takes her students and their families on adaptive ski trips and snowboarding weekends.

It’s part of her philosophy of “bringing things from our own lives to our work.”

Rachel Goodman brought the sense of humor she developed during the time she spent dressed as a penguin at an aquarium to her work with K–8 students at Battery Park School in Manhattan. Honored for her school spirit and sense of community, she relishes “the relationships you form with students and with their families. It’s a real sense of community.”

A special achievement award was presented to Robert McHale, a guidance counselor assigned, for the extraordinary support he provides to all the counselors in his network.

In presenting the award, Cheryl Hall, the senior administrator in the Office of Guidance and School Counseling, herself an honoree, said, “You are always there for us, by our side.”

Noting “the passion we bring to the job,” UFT Guidance Counselors Chapter Leader Rosemarie Thompson brought the ceremony to a close by congratulating honorees for “always being there for students and families, for always providing an academic push and for reminding students to set goals.”