Nov 16, 2017 2 min read

CANONSBURG – Karen Rubican always knew she wanted to help people.

When she was growing up, she wanted at first to be a doctor, “until I realized that involved the insides of people,” she said.

“I wasn’t really cut out for that,” Rubican said in her office on a recent Friday afternoon. “But that drive to make a difference didn’t change.”

Rubican, 45, of Venetia, is now a school counselor at Canon-McMillan High School. This fall, she was named one of finalists for the School Superintendents Association Women in School Leadership Award for 2018. The winner will be decided during the association’s conference, which will be held Feb. 15 to 17 in Nashville.

Rubican is one of two finalists for the award’s category for school-based educators, “which recognizes the leadership skills of talented teachers, coaches and other school-based employees seeking leadership positions,” according to the group’s website.

Applicants are evaluated based on criteria that include leadership for learning, communication, professionalism and community involvement.

High school senior Sarah Centore, 17, called Rubican “one of the biggest role models in my life.”

“You see how she communicates and her knowledge of what she does, and it makes you want to be the same way in the future,” Centore said.

Rubican started working for the district in 2009.

Immediately before that, she spent two years developing the college and career counseling program for students in grades 8-12 in Woodland Hills School District, which is in eastern Allegheny County. Earlier in her career, she worked at the Allegheny County Office of Children, Youth and Families, among other places.

“All of my jobs have allowed me to focus on children, and on families,” Rubican said. “That’s a blessing for me.”

She and her husband, Rick, have two daughters – Meredith, 17, and Sarah, 14, who attend Peters Township High School.

Rubican said “being a high school counselor has had more of an impact on my parenting than the reverse,” adding that “when my daughters hit each stage of development and moved to a new school that they were ready.”

“I was not at all nervous when they got to high school because I see how awesome the vast majority of high school students are and how prepared they have been for each milestone,” she said. “I also realize how many wonderful opportunities await our high school students and am thrilled when students take advantage of them.”