Vaughn is Eugene Field Teacher of the Year

Editor’s Note: This is the sixth of 12 stories highlighting Butler County Teachers of the Year.

Teaching is a passion for Eugene Field Elementary interventionist Rondi Vaughn.

Vaughn is the 2020-21 Teacher of the Year for the campus after more than 20 years with the district.

Eugene Field Elementary teacher Rondi Vaughn helps students with reading.Photo provided

She serves as “the driving force of getting our reading units planned, developed and revised,” Cindy Robertson wrote in her nominating letter.

Vaughn has worked as a first-, second- and fourth-grade teacher, as well as reading interventionist between Eugene Field and Oak Grove Elementary schools. She started as interventionist at Eugene Field in 2018.

In this role, she works with students, who are struggling, to help them catch up and keep pace with their classmates.

Rondi Vaughn works with Eugene Field Elementary School students.Photo provided

Vaughn serves as a mentor for other teachers in the school, Library Media Specialist Melissa Reese wrote.

“She has taken time to show me many ways to incorporate reading strategies to better assist students or to take what I was already doing and improve upon it,” Reese wrote.

Vaughn started a schoolwide kindness tree challenge for students’ kind actions to be visibly displayed and celebrated.

Eugene Field Elementary School Teacher of the Year Rondi Vaughn works with students. Photo provided

“The challenge was met and exceeded expectations,” Reese wrote.

Vaughn also teaches education classes at Hannibal LaGrange.

“She works each job with the same energy,” Robertson wrote. “She gives everything her all.”

Vaughn always expects the best from her students and pushes them toward a “deeper understanding” of the material, but teaches them in a high-engaging style, Robertson wrote.

“She learned each student so well that she is able to make connections with them because she knows their strengths and weaknesses,” Robertson wrote. “Because of that, she is able to focus on them and make them feel special. Her high-engaging lessons are ones that all students benefit from.”

Vaughn’s two daughters played sports at PBHS. She and her husband, Scott, own a car wash in town and are involved in a social group, Robertson wrote.

Vaughn considers education more of a passion than a profession, she wrote in her resume.

“As I look at each class I serve this year, I want to prepare these students to be problem solvers and leaders with good hearts and minds for the future,” she wrote. “I intend to always make sure that every student who walks into our school is met with high expectations and support to succeed.

“The learning expectation is the destination for our class, but for each child we must find their path to follow and honor the different paths of learning.”

Parent Cheri Sparkman wrote that her son, Reagan, wanted nothing to do with books and lacked confidence in reading.

“As a parent and educator, it was very difficult to hear that my child was struggling in the area of reading,” she wrote. “I was able to confide in her about the difficulty of watching my child struggle. Mrs. Vaughn was a sound source of advice, encouragement and knowledge.”

With Vaughn’s help and guidance, Sparkman wrote, Reagan received the tools he needed to become a confident reader.

“She tries to teach us how to read,” Reagan wrote in his own letter. “She teaches us words that we don’t know. She is very nice. She loves kids. I really really really like Mrs. Vaughn.”