Clearwater Character
Clearwater’s Sarah Painter is Florida’s Teacher of the Year
The leadership and passion of Eisenhower
Elementary’s Sarah Painter has brought the state’s top
teaching award home to the city of Clearwater.
On July 22, balloons came raining down on the fifth-grade
teacher in Orlando at a Florida Department of Education
gala, after the announcement that she had been named the
2022 Florida Teacher of the Year. It is a memory that still
takes Painter’s breath away.
“It was just incredible. I can still feel it in my chest with that
result,” she said.
It was a whirlwind night for the Painter family. She is the
mother of six children, ages 4 to 15, who came to the gala
and stayed in the hotel room as Painter and her husband
attended the big event. But after their mother won the
award, staying put watching an online stream was not going
to cut it.
As the celebration erupted on stage, Painter’s husband asked
her whether he should get the children and bring them
down. For a moment, mom wondered if they might be in
their pajamas and shouldn’t, but those thoughts gave way to
joy, and they came down for pictures.
“I just said we need to share this moment with them,”
Painter said. “My husband and kids sacrifice so much for me
to be the teacher I am.”
The honor is the culmination of Painter’s 18th school
year, which tested her and all educators amid
the COVID-19 pandemic. The difficulties
brought by the pandemic did not
crack Painter’s resolve to the get the
job done. Instead, she pushed her
students to continue working hard
with a positive attitude. Instead
of getting down, her classroom’s
motto became “Find Joy.”
It not only resonated with her
classroom, her school, and her
administrators, but county and state
leaders took notice, too.
08 MyClearwater