KDE accepting nominations for the 2026 Kentucky Teacher of the Year
Nominations are now being accepted for the 2026 Kentucky Teacher of the Year awards.
Nominations are now being accepted for the 2026 Kentucky Teacher of the Year awards.
These teachers qualify to compete for the 2025 Kentucky Teacher of the Year Award, which will be announced in September.
The Kentucky Board of Education (KBE) and the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) Office of Continuous Improvement and Support hosted a showcase of student defenses of learning during the KBE regular meeting on June 5-6.
If you’ve ever been to an event where Newport High School (Newport Independent) is involved, you’ve likely seen or heard Nate Green.
Among the most significant qualities of a truly memorable teacher is their ability to build and maintain relationships with students and colleagues. Becky Watkins, a social studies teacher from Gallatin County High School, does that better than most.
Every successful team needs that one person who they can always count on; the person that, no matter how bumpy the road may get, they will see it through; the person who will keep calm through chaos. At Ballyshannon Middle School in Boone County, that person is Maegan Tepe.
The council typically takes on a project each school year, which have included topics such as school safety and student mental health. This year, members decided to amplify student voice.
Nominations are now being accepted for the 2025 Kentucky Teacher of the Year awards. Presented by the Kentucky Department of Education, the awards celebrate some of the Commonwealth’s most outstanding educators.
Every day in Kumar Rashad’s classroom is a call for urgency. “Many of my students have died or got shot and killed,” said Rashad, a mathematics teacher at Breckinridge Metropolitan High School in Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS), an alternative school with students who have been in the criminal justice system.
Kevin Dailey was never supposed to be a teacher. As a child, he had hopes of being an architect, taking an idea and forging it into something that would last forever. “As a child of divorce and of economic insecurity, not much was expected of me at school,” said Dailey, a at Ballyshannon Middle School (Boone County). “I would finish school, then I would paint houses like my dad and his dad before him.”