Ms Sullivan has spent nearly 20 years teaching in the bush, mostly in the central west of NSW, and has been the principal of Gwabegar Public School for the past five years.

She has been part of the federation since 2003, and has been playing a more active role in the organisation since 2009.

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She has now taken a senior role with federation, taking over from Mercurius Goldstein and said there's a number of items on her agenda.

"The More than Thanks campaign is our big issue at the moment, addressing workload issues and teacher shortages," she said.

"Which isn't just in the New England-North West, it's statewide and it is becoming an issue and we need to do something now before it becomes catastrophic."

Last December teachers across the state went on strike to demand a salary increase of between 5 and 7.5 per cent a year.

Department of Education figures at the time showed 6.8 per cent of all teaching positions in the state were vacant, which translated to more than 3000 roles.

Ms Sullivan said she feels as if she has big shoes to fill, stepping into the role of Mr Goldstein, who had been in the position for years and was well known within the local education community.

She feels up to the task though, as does the federation, with both parties having a strong say in the decision for her to take over.

"It was a bit of both, I was on the executive of the federation for the past two years and just had friends and colleagues mention that there would be elections coming up and maybe I should think about going into an organising role," she said.

"I thought it would be something I'd enjoy, I'd still be in education but working with teachers so I thought I'd give it a go, and here I am."

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