Two charter school teachers have been honored as Michigan Regional Teachers of the Year for 2025, signifying them as the best in the state at what they do. Both teachers are now in the running to be named the 2025 Michigan Teacher of the Year.
The Michigan Department of Education awards the honors, and divides the state up into 10 geographic regions. In both Region 10 (the City of Detroit) and Region 1 (the Upper Peninsula), a charter school teacher received the top honor.
Susan Kelsey-Brewton, a middle-school science teacher at Hope Academy in Detroit, is the Regional Teacher of the Year for Region 10, while Susan Solomon, a gifted-and-talented teacher at the JKL Bahweting Anishnabe Public School Academy in Sault Ste. Marie, is the Regional Teacher of the Year for Region 1.
Dan Quisenberry, the President of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies (MAPSA), the state charter school association, was quick to point out the historical significance of the honors.
Until 2020, a charter school teacher had never been honored as a Michigan Regional Teacher of the Year, and now we have one almost every year. This year marks the first time that we’ve had two Regional Teachers of the Year in the same year, and we’re just so proud of both Susan Kelsey-Brewton and Susan Solomon. Charter school teachers are among the very best educators in the state, and it’s so rewarding to see them getting the recognition they deserve.
This is the third time in the past four years that the Regional Teacher of the Year for Detroit has been a charter school teacher. Last year, the honor went to Calvin Nellum, a middle-school science teacher at the Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In the Upper Peninsula, meanwhile, the JKL Bahweting Anishnabe Public School Academy – a tribal charter school that primarily serves members of the Anishnabe tribe – is on quite a roll. In 2020, teacher Tan-A Hoffman from the school was named the Regional Teacher of the Year, and now Susan Solomon has earned the honor in 2025. That means that the same school has produced the U.P.’s best teacher in two out of the last six years.
“That’s pretty remarkable,” Quisenberry said.
A graduate of Wayne State University, Susan Kelsey-Brewton has been teaching at Hope Academy for the past 10 years.
I was just honored and just flabbergasted and excited and scared and just a mix of emotions when I found out about the Teacher of the Year honor. I’ve always considered myself as a good teacher, but never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be chosen.
“I’ve taught in charter schools my entire career,” she said. “We have generally smaller class sizes and a better student-teacher ratio, which I like. We have families that kind of follow us. We have generations of families that stay at the school, and we develop these relationships with our students, and I think that's the key to being a good teacher – developing a relationship.”
As for what she enjoys most about teaching, she said it’s helping her students understand the real-life applications of what they learn in her science class.
The thing that I like the most about teaching is that I like to make these connections between all the disciplines – between science and math and English and everything else. So when we’re talking about variables in science class, I make sure they understand variable means this in math, it means this in science, but it’s connected.
Susan Solomon grew up in the Upper Peninsula and married a member of the Anishnabe tribe. Her children are Anishnabe, and she feels a special purpose working at such a special school.
I care a lot about rural education. I’m a product of rural education in Michigan. I grew up in the UP and I’ve lived here my whole life. I work at a great school and I work alongside incredible teachers, so I’m certainly not comfortable saying that I’m a better teacher than any of them because I don't believe that I am. I'm just lucky to be afforded an opportunity to be in a place where to be recognized for it.
As the leader of JKL Bahweting Anishnabe’s gifted and talented program, she works primarily with the school’s middle-school students. She heads up the school’s highly acclaimed Future Cities and Odyssey of the Mind teams, among other things.
I don’t know how people work in schools and don’t work with kids. They give me so much hope for our future honestly. Being a middle school teacher, it gives you such a good lens to see the world through these kids and see that they’re caring and compassionate and smart and capable and they’re going to solve the problems that are left for them.
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