Meet Sarah Burfening—a Golden Apple Teacher of the Year finalist

Sarah Burfening [Marion County Public Schools]

Sarah Burfening, a Madison Street Academy of Visual and Performing Arts fifth grade teacher, has been selected as a finalist for this year’s Golden Apple Teacher of the Year award.

Burfening teaches math and science. She has been teaching in Marion County Public Schools since 2015 and has 19 years of experience in the classroom.

Burfening comes from a family of teachers. Her mother Betsy Burfening is a retired teacher who won Teacher of the Year for Santa Rosa County in the 1994-95 school year. Her mother was part of the caravan, led by Superintendent Diane Gullett, who surprised Burfening with her Golden Apple Nomination on Dec. 11.

“Seeing her relationship with her students and her peers and what she was able to do really kind of solidified for me what I wanted to do,” Burfening said about her mother. “Just seeing her having those magical moments and teaching back before computers and technology was a thing made me want to be like her for sure.”

The Teacher of the Year honor is awarded by the Public Education Foundation of Marion County, and the winner will be announced at the Golden Apple Gala on Feb. 1, 2025, at 7 p.m. at the Reilly Arts Center in Ocala.

Marion County’s 2025 Golden Apple Teacher of the Year will win an Acura Integra, with a three-year pre-paid lease from the Jenkins Auto Group. The gala will also recognize the 2025 School Related Employee of the Year and Rookie Teacher of the Year.

Burfening said her teaching style is built on hands-on opportunities for her students to get them more closely involved with mathematics and science.

“We’re not afraid to make messes in my classroom,” she said. “I have class pets. Bring anything that you can bring from the real world out into the classroom.”

One activity she did with her class was an experiment where her students learned how to make a light bulb light up with circuits, she said.

“I think they hang on to it more, they retain the information more. They can connect it to things that they do every day,” Burfening said. “I just feel like those hands-on activities just really make it a better learning experience for them.”

Burfening said the most rewarding part about teaching is when she sees her students finally understand something, having a “light bulb” moment.

“It’s really those light bulb moments when a student is struggling with a concept or doesn’t get it, and then finally it just clicks one day and they get it,” she said. “They say, ‘Oh, that’s why this works.’”

Burfening came to teach at MCPS fresh from outside Seoul, South Korea, where she taught English for two years. She taught at The Aran Institute of Reggio Emilia and ACELI English Language School from 2013 to 2015.

“I was in the right place in my life to be able to kind of just move, so I sold my house and took a job teaching at an English school for two years, and it was definitely an experience,” she said.

Burfening said that growing up, her father was in the military, so she always wanted the opportunity to work overseas as an adult.

“It makes you really stop and think about all the idiosyncrasies of the English language that we just take for granted, that we don’t think about when we’re speaking,” Burfening said.

After 20 years in education, Burfening said it’s the students who give her motivation.

“I haven’t lost the joy in the classroom,” she said. “In the classroom, it’s still fun to come to work. It’s fun to work with the kids.”