SES Principal
Heather Ethell

•July 24, 2019•

By Ellen Ferrera
for The News Progress

Heather Ethell, new principal at Sullivan Elementary School, grew up in the Chicago suburb of Mt. Prospect. Her mother was a librarian, and her favorite school subjects were science and math. She also remembers loving to play all sorts of card games.
Ethell entered the University of Illinois planning to be a pediatrician but decided a career in teaching seemed more practical.
Looking back, she recalls, “All went well until the student teaching segment. It was a horrible experience. There was little supervision, and I didn’t connect with either the students or the teachers.”
She returned home that summer and told her mother that teaching was not going to be her career. “Mother reminded me that they had invested a lot in my education, and that I should make use of it. Mom encouraged me to apply at her school for a paraprofessional position.”
This experience was a revelation.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.