Sabreena Ratani
Sabreena Ratani is an experienced educational leader based in the Greater Orlando area, currently serving with Orange County Public Schools. She is a dedicated and innovative educator who is passionate about student growth, responsibility, and achievement. Her work is grounded in building strong relationships with students, families, and colleagues while fostering a classroom and school culture rooted in mutual respect, open communication, and continuous improvement. She is known for combining instructional excellence with a strong focus on social-emotional development and collaborative learning environments.
She has worked in education for approximately 12 years, with a professional journey that reflects a significant career transformation. She began her career in business administration within the corporate sector but gradually transitioned into education after becoming deeply involved in volunteer initiatives supporting youth and Title I schools. Through this work, she discovered a strong passion for educational equity and student support, often dedicating additional time to developing instructional materials and contributing to school-based programs. Motivated by the impact she could have in education, she pursued a Master of Arts in Teaching from the University of Southern California and fully transitioned into the field, where she has remained committed ever since.
In her current role, Sabreena serves both as a middle school mathematics teacher and an instructional coach within the same school community. She teaches approximately 120 students while also supporting new and developing teachers through coaching, modeling effective instructional strategies, and providing actionable feedback. Her expertise extends beyond content delivery to include classroom management, relationship-building, instructional planning, and time management support for educators. One of her most notable achievements includes helping students who entered the year approximately two grade levels behind due to COVID-19 disruptions; by year’s end, approximately 87% of those students reached or exceeded grade level, reflecting her commitment to high expectations and measurable student growth.
• Georgia Educator Certificate - Middle Grades 4th-8th
• University of Southern California - M.A.T. in Middle Grades Social Science Urban Education
• Georgia State University - J. Mack Robinson College of Business - BBA, Risk Management and Insurance
• Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) - Youth Projects and Youth Camps
• Primary School Education Board Member -
Education Board Southeast
• Teacher Educator -
ITREB USA
What do you attribute your success to?
I would say two things have been key to my success. Number one is family, for sure. No matter what decisions I've made, going back and forth between choices of work, to where I am now, having to move up states a few times, they were just there for me and have always been troopers. They supported me in everything, so family would definitely be number one. The other thing is really perseverance. The education field has gone through a lot of changes, a lot of ups and downs, and students have changed a lot within the last 12 years. Being able to persevere and keep learning, to just continue to grow, to change with the environment and change with the students that you see rather than being in a fixed mindset of wanting to have it done one way, that doesn't work. So I would say family support, which has been great, but definitely perseverance.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I've ever received was to pause and process. It's really simple, but it means being able to pause anything that could be happening, especially when it's challenging, to just take a breath, pause, and take a step back to see what's happening in order to try to solve it, and allow your body to process whatever it is. Even though sometimes things have deadlines and you might not have time, it's such a small statement but it really does help to just be able to say, okay, I'm just going to pause and process this. That was a big nugget that was given to me by one of my first instructional coaches. She taught me about just taking a breath and allowing myself to process any challenging situation that's happening.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would give the advice of managing time and definitely taking time out for herself. We enter into this field very passionate, and a lot of times teachers are coming in passionate about our students, and we want to do so much for them. We want to provide the best of the best lesson plans, and a lot of times we have to take it home. As much as I love that and think it's amazing that teachers would want to do that, it will burn them out. So what I would say is definitely take out time where you are spending time for yourself, for everything and anything you are doing, so then you can keep providing those beautiful moments for your students.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think there are two main challenges I've noticed. One is definitely how state by state there are different requirements to be a teacher. New York has different requirements, Florida has different requirements, but also salary-wise there's a big difference. We talk about cost of living being different in different states, but the cost of living that exists, for example I'm in Florida, is such that I'm barely able to meet all of the requirements. So I think salary is a big part for teachers and educators. The other thing I've noticed is just a change of climate with our students. Our students are no longer just going along with whatever the authoritative figure is. They need to understand the why. They need to understand what they're doing and why they're doing it and have a voice in it. It's quite a generational change. I've been doing this for 12 years, but I will say since COVID, the last five or six years or so, I've just seen a big change and a switch in how students approach teachers. Sometimes it seems like they're just being rude, but honestly, if we go to the root of it, they just want to understand it better and now they're just voicing it. I think now the parents are more millennial parents who are allowing and building students or kids to be able to ask more questions and be more experimental and explorative. It's been an interesting shift.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
There are two values most important to me. One is individual relationship-based integrity, really just being able to do the right thing even when nobody's watching, or really having a goal and trying to work towards that goal. That's been very valuable to me, and integrity works at work with my students, with my child, with any personal relationships I may have. The other one is community. You go through a lot of things in life, and a lot of times you feel like you are alone or individuals, but it's good to have the community with you or around you and be able to reach out to them and be able to rely on them for things that are challenging, or just to possibly even have a different idea. So for me, it's integrity and community.