‘Meant to Be’: Teacher of the Year Fulfills Lifelong Dream
Published: | by Hannah Sparling
Rhiannon Sullivan has been a teacher since she was a kid.
She spent her summers playing school with her little brother. Sullivan was always the teacher, and she even went as far as to make her brother get signed field-trip permission slips from their parents for family outings.
“We would do interactive journals and notebooks and have quizzes and tests. I just loved it,” she said. “And my poor brother did not.”
Sullivan would tell her mother, a science teacher, that she wanted to follow in her footsteps when she grew up. (And her mother would jokingly respond: “Over my dead body.”)
Despite that early passion, Sullivan didn’t pursue education right away. A classmate was diagnosed with cancer when she was in high school, and Sullivan and some friends started a Dance Marathon organization at their school to show their support. As part of that group, Sullivan got to work with a lot of doctors and nurses, and she grew more and more interested in healthcare.
After high school, she went on to earn her bachelor’s degree in nursing. But right after college, before she’d even started her nursing career, Sullivan was at her mom’s school helping decorate for the coming year. The assistant principal came in and asked Sullivan how nursing was going, and Sullivan was honest. She wasn’t sure it was the best fit.
The assistant principal’s reply changed her life: “Our anatomy teacher isn’t returning — do you want a job?”
Florida science teacher Rhiannon Sullivan poses with the school mascot, Fellini the Lion.
‘Meant to Be an Educator’
Sullivan was hired two days before the start of school. It could have been chaotic and stressful, but instead, it felt natural. She liked nursing because she got to help people, but with teaching, she got to help people, and she wasn’t in tears by the end of the workday. Plus, as a science teacher, she could still use her medical background.
“I think life has a way of working out and putting you where you’re supposed to be,” she said. “And I truly feel like I was meant to be an educator.”
Sullivan loves to do hands-on activities with her students. Here, they dissect a banana to learn the different planes and cuts before other dissection projects.
Sullivan teaches for G Star School of the Arts in Florida, which is part of the Charter Schools USA network. CSUSA has a partnership with Moreland University, which meant Sullivan could get full tuition coverage to earn her teaching certification through Moreland. When her principal told her, she was so happy she nearly cried. Then, she learned her school would pay for Moreland’s 3-month M.Ed. Add-On as well.
“That’s a huge thing, to pay for my education and to pay for me to get my certification,” she said. “To have that faith in me when I’m such a young teacher — I’m so thankful for it. I can’t even put it into words.”
Sullivan graduated from Moreland’s TEACH-NOW Teacher Preparation Certificate Program in May, and she just wrapped up her M.Ed. in Educational Technology. She loves that Moreland was manageable for a working teacher and that the instructors are teachers themselves with real-world classroom experience.
“Moreland has been a blessing for me, and they made getting my certification so easy,” she said. “I got the most out of Moreland at the end when we did the evaluations, and I love that it wasn’t only your professor’s viewpoint of your teaching, not only your mentor’s, but it was also your classmates. I loved seeing so many people’s different styles of teaching and [getting] different ideas.”
Sullivan was named Teacher of the Year in her region for CSUSA. Now she’s up for a statewide award.
Teacher of the Year
This year, Sullivan was named Teacher of the Year at her school. Then, she won the same award for her entire CSUSA region. Now, she’s up for the statewide honor.
When they told her she won the regional award, she was so surprised she accidentally told the regional director to shut up.
“I just felt like I was in a dream, and someone needed to wake me up,” she said. “I’m still processing it.”
As part of the regional award application, Sullivan answered a few questions about her teaching practice and her passion for education. She got to talk about her “why” for teaching, which has always been her students. So, she let her students speak for themselves:
- “She’s the definition of putting others first.” — quote from a 12th grade student
- “She gave me motivation to actually learn the subject, rather than just cheat my way through.” — 9th grade student
- “I hated school, but she makes it tolerable.” — 11th grade student
- “She believed in me and encouraged me. She changed my perspective, and now I see rigorous courses as something I can achieve.” — 10th grade student
Sullivan is currently in her fourth year of teaching (not counting summers with her brother), and while there are difficult days, she’s so thankful this is where she landed. She knows she’s changing student lives, and that makes even the worst day worth it.
“What a beautiful job this is,” she said.
Her 10-year-old self would be delighted.
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