From college classmates to classroom co-teachers: Two URI alums navigate the first year of teaching together

By Jo Fisher

URI classmates, friends, and now co-teachers Emma Corcoran and Sadie Flynn are still smiling as they approach the final months of their first year of teaching fourth grade together.

As undergraduates both studying education at the University of Rhode Island, Emma Corcoran ‘25 and Sadie Flynn ‘25 met through a mutual friend and grew close after completing a group project their sophomore year. Little did they know they would soon become colleagues.

As graduation approached in May 2025, Flynn, who hails from New York, knew she wanted to stay in Rhode Island but needed to nail down a job on the early side to be certain a relocation would be feasible. She interviewed during Providence Public Schools’ early contract hiring fair for hard-to-fill positions. As an Elementary Education (ELED) and Special Education major, that position was going to be Special Education. After receiving an initial offer, she could interview at a number of elementary schools in the city and rank her choices.

“It was a very difficult decision, trying to find the school that would be the right fit for me while trying to tune out the negative stereotypes that accompany teaching in Providence schools,” Flynn says. But then what seemed like the perfect job opened up: a fourth grade inclusion English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom at Alfred Lima Elementary School in Providence’s West End. The school was hiring for both the general and the special education positions in that classroom.

“I mostly jokingly sent it to Emma, thinking this is too good to be true,” Flynn says. “Who is going to hire two college seniors to teach in a classroom together?”

The friends knew they had to go for it. And not even 24 hours after they interviewed, they had the jobs—with Corcoran teaching general education and Flynn handling special education. Then came the work.

Flynn and Corcoran on their first day of co-teaching in a fourth grade inclusion ESL classroom at Alfred Lima Elementary School in Providence.

“After we were hired, Sadie and I started right away getting things ready to go for the school year,“ says Corcoran, who graduated from Pilgrim High School in Warwick, RI, and at URI majored in ELED with a minor in Human Development and Family Sciences (HDF). “We spent every possible day we could cleaning, organizing, and overall creating a space that we truly believed our students could thrive in.”

Over the summer, the pair “poured—not even exaggerating—blood, sweat, and tears into creating our dream classroom,” Flynn adds.

The team produced a “warm and inviting” learning environment for their students, says George Nippo, who recently visited their classroom as a guest reader during reading week. Nippo, an Education Professional Advisor in the College of Education, adds, “It’s incredibly exciting to see two all‑star URI students and recent graduates turn their hard work in Kingston into meaningful and impactful careers as educators here in Rhode Island.”

Flynn and Corcoran at the annual URI Feinstein College of Education Medallion Ceremony in 2025.

The strong foundation Corcoran and Flynn gained through their coursework and their placements while at URI has served them well. Both the ELED and HDF programs “were wonderful experiences for me and truly shaped me into the teacher I am today,” says Corcoran. “From the support of professors and staff to friends and the relationships I made along the way, I loved every second of it. My time at the University of Rhode Island is something I will always cherish. It brought me some of my closest friends today, one of them being Sadie.”

Flynn, who served as a mentor for education majors in URI 101, echoes Corcoran’s sentiments: “I made great personal connections with the faculty and felt well supported in my journey to becoming the confident and enthusiastic teacher I am today. The cohort of teaching residents was a tight-knit community, and I was able to make great lifelong friendships, including Emma.”

And now the two are having the experience of a lifetime.

“Being able to work with one of your friends is never something I thought I would be able to do,” Corcoran says. “This year has made our friendship even stronger as we have found ways to navigate through our first year together. We both are there for one another and get to go through the ups and downs of what that first school year can bring you. Getting to do this with someone I know I can trust and rely on has been amazing. While we may not be able to do this forever, it will always be an experience that I will hold close to my heart. My first year will be memorable for many reasons, but it will always be the year I got to teach with one of my closest friends.”

While the first year of teaching is often a challenging one, especially when coupled with the additional stressors of working in an urban, multilingual setting, tackling the task with a friend has helped ease the load.

“Working together has been an unforgettable experience, sometimes only relatable to that of a married couple,” says Flynn. “While co-teaching has its ups and downs, having each other to lean on when times are tough and turn to when all that’s left to do is laugh is something that I wouldn’t trade. If 25 rowdy nine-year olds didn’t ruin our friendship, I don’t think anything can—and the stories we have from our first-year teaching…well, that’s a story for another day!”