‘Like the Oscars for teachers’: Meet the four finalists for Miami-Dade’s Teacher of the Year
For the past 23 years, aside from a few during the pandemic, Stephanie King has hosted a gathering of teachers at her home to celebrate the four nominees for Miami-Dade Public Schools Teacher of the Year. The tradition of awarding the prize to one of the county’s highly passionate teachers has been in place since 1967, but King, Teacher of the Year in 2000, hosts the event at her home to allow the nominees to get to know each other and meet winners from previous years.
King says the prize was once highly competitive and sometimes brought out the worst in people: nominees would be critical of each other and even storm out of the awards ceremony if they didn’t win.
But King has created a community among past winners—where they support each other in the great moments but also through challenges.
“This is like the Oscars for teachers, who often do not get recognized,” said Renee O’Connor, an African American History studies teacher and Teacher of the Year from 2023, at King’s event.
At King’s house Tuesday, former winners met the four nominees for this year, and enjoyed food and champagne.
This year’s finalists include two U.S. History high school teachers, a teacher of appliance and refrigeration repair at a technical school and a middle school orchestra teacher. Aside from being passionate teachers, all of this year’s Teacher of the Year nominees are also dedicated parents who are able to strike a balance between caring for their children and caring for their students.
Every school in the district nominates a teacher and the committee narrows that group to four finalists from the North, Central and South regions, and Adult/Technical Colleges and Educational Opportunity & Access.
The winners and runners up for both Teacher of the Year and Rookie of the Year, which honors teachers in the first year-and-a-half of their career, will be announced on Jan. 28 at an awards ceremony at the DoubleTree by Hilton Miami Airport and Convention Center.
The Teacher of the Year receives $3500, and the two runners up each receive $1000. Among the gifts received by the winner is a gift basket with baseball, football and basketball tickets and a spa treatment. They also receive a ring and a video.
But the biggest prize for the 2026 Teacher of the Year winner is a a brand new car, donated by Kendall Toyota.
Here are the four finalists for Miami-Dade’s Francisco R. Walker Teacher of the Year 2026.
Leroy Douglas (Adult/Technical): The value of trade skills
Leroy Douglas is an appliance and refrigeration repair teacher at Robert Morgan Educational Center and Technical College in southwest Miami-Dade and hopes winning Teacher of the Year will bring more awareness to the value of trade skills.
“We do a lot for the community, but the community doesn’t notice it,” says Douglas, of the many nurses, car mechanics, and appliance repair workers trained at the school now working in the community.
Douglas, who came to the United States from Jamaica when he was 14, grew up around appliances. His father would often fix air conditioners in his neighborhood.
At 16, he enrolled at Robert Morgan, his sights set on studying architecture. However, he found the pace of architecture too slow and ended up taking Major Appliances, which he says is the most challenging class at the school.
Now, 28 years later, he teaches that course at the same school he once attended—choosing not to pursue other more lucrative job prospects to be in the classroom teaching students the skills he views as a ticket to a successful life.
For the past 18 years, Douglas has committed himself to teaching everything he can to his students, including how and when to start their own business, and of course, how to repair complicated machines. He has even helped students fill out paperwork to start their own corporations.
Douglas also runs his own appliance repair business where he employs two administrators and three technicians.
At Robert Morgan, Douglas has a warehouse with around 400 appliances, many donated by large manufacturers like Whirlpool and LG. Those companies need qualified technicians and are eager to support his class at the school, he said.
Douglas goes above and beyond for his students. In recent weeks, one of his students could not afford the $15 exam to get his HVAC certificate, so Douglas paid for it out of his own money.
“I said I’ll pay for it, but if you fail, you pay me back,” he said.
He had one student who arrived from Cuba and joined his appliance repair course. Just three years after graduating, that student was able to buy a home for his mother with the money he earned as an appliance technician.
For Douglas, it is these kinds of stories that keep him motivated.
“My students are like family. It is like a legitimate family. I will go above and beyond. I don’t ever want to let them down, I don’t want to be complacent,” he said.
He has also paid for his students to go to SkillsUSA competitions which test skills, problem-solving, and customer service. Over the past 17 years, his students have earned 15 state gold medals, and 15 medals at the national level.
Shannon Grant (North Region): ‘He is a relationship builder’
Shannon Grant has been teaching for 26 years, 19 of those in Miami-Dade. He now teaches history at Alonzo and Tracy Mourning Senior High School in North Miami Beach, and serves as the chair of the social sciences department.
The former college basketball player from Brooklyn, N.Y., said he fell in love with teaching during his summers mentoring youth at the Jackie Robinson Foundation in New York.
“Working with inner-city students, I saw reflections of my own journey, reigniting my passion to serve and guide others,” he said.
He said the experience instilled in him a commitment to education as a pathway for social impact. Since, Shannon has dedicated himself to his students’ success, often opening up his classroom on Saturdays as a study hall. At first this was an unofficial way to help his students, for many of whom English is not their native language. Now, this program has become official and is called Saturday Learn Labs.
In 2023, 57.1% of his AP U.S. History students got scores of 3 or above, notably higher than the Florida average of 43.3%.
He said he was especially proud of these students, as many of them were in early stages of English proficiency.
Grant’s colleague at Alonso and Tracy Mourning High, Molly Dialo, 2019 Teacher of the Year, described how Grant stands in his classroom doorway high-fiving and giving hugs to students as they pass by in the hallway.
“He is a relationship builder in his heart, and it is endearing to see,” said Dialo at the Tuesday event at King’s house. She added that all students love him, even the challenging kids who do not connect with other teachers at the school.
Grant also created a voter education and registration drive at his school to encourage civic engagement. Students set up tables during lunch to encourage classmates to register to vote, and teachers would teach about the history and significance of voting in their courses. Grant wrote in his Teacher of the Year application that over 100 students registered to vote as a result of the initiative.
Vivian Ventura (South Region): ‘I saw kids change before my eyes because of music’
Vivian Ventura is an orchestra teacher at Southwood Middle School. She has not only transformed the program at her school but is also working to expand music programs at other schools in her region.
Ventura views music as a way to create good citizens.
“It teaches kids how to work with each other, how to listen for each other, how to have discipline, how to develop grit, which, if they apply to their academics, should make them pretty successful,” she said.
Ventura, a multi-instrumentalist who grew up in Puerto Rico, fell in love with teaching while studying music education at Florida State University.
“I saw kids change before my eyes because of music. They learned to speak for themselves. They learned to stay busy in something constructive versus destructive. I really saw the power of music, and I fell in love with teaching,” she said.
Ventura plans concerts for her students in the community at nursing homes, hospitals, and holiday tree lightings.
She has also built collaborations with the community. A recent collaboration resulted in a dusty and abandoned piano lab at Southwood Middle being brought back to life with 20 newly donated pianos.
She also raised $12,000 to replace the worn-out orchestra lockers at the school, which had not been replaced since the ‘70s.
She teaches music theory and music history and conducts her students in a repertoire ranging from Tchaikovsky to rock ’n’ roll.
At a music competition last year, her middle schoolers won the World Stride Heritage competition, competing against high schoolers. As a result, her musicians were invited to perform next year at Carnegie Hall, and she plans to spend her summer raising money to ensure all students can attend.
She also created a mentorship program for students to receive private music lessons free of cost, as a way to level the playing field.
Ventura is currently pursuing her masters at Florida State University. As part of her studies, she is developing a music history curriculum for music teachers.
Daniel Vinat (Central Region): Leading with joy
Daniel Vinat has been teaching in Miami-Dade for 22 years. He is a history teacher at JC Bermudez Doral Senior High School.
Vinat was raised by his single mom from Mexico, and is able to share his experience of success as an immigrant with his students. Over fifty percent of Vinat’s students are in the English for Speakers of Other Languages course, meaning they are still learning English.
As a Spanish-speaker himself, Vinat makes it his mission to nurture these students and help them find a love for learning.
Like so many teachers, Vinat was inspired to pursue the profession because of his own incredible experiences as a student. He recalls his third grade teacher who brought in a wooden wardrobe to the classroom, took out the back panel, and read a story from inside.
“That creativity has stayed with me even today, when I teach,” he said.
Vinat says there are days when he comes home feeling great and accomplished, knowing that a student’s light bulb clicked, and they really understood his lesson. But he also acknowledges there are says when he goes home feeling more discouraged.
But both kinds of days inspire and push him, he says.
The harder days drive him “to figure out what’s the new way, what’s the new avenue…How do I get to them?”
Vinat sees his role as a teacher as laying the foundation for people’s lives, and says he is a big supporter of public education and “the power of that public education has to help equalize a society.”
“You make a society better when you give up yourself in whatever you can. Find your talent, find your niche, but give up yourself,” he said.
Vinat is heavily involved at his school. This year, he worked with the Miami Herald Silver Knight nominees, a group of students that are honored by the Miami Herald for their academic achievements and service to the community. He also works with the Key Club, a service club, and is the president of the Miami Dade Council for the Social Studies, which organizes an annual conference for teachers.
When the principal at his high school realized many students were not showing up for school to take their statewide assessments, they organized fun events and awards to encourage participation. Vinant went above and beyond, even dressing up as Willy Wonka for one of the ice cream parties.
Creating fun celebrations and a culture of positivity proved to be successful. The school increased proficiency levels on the exams.
Rookie of the year
The school district also recognizes a Rookie Teacher of the Year. Here are this year’s finalists:
Nikolas Venegas – South Region
Evlyne Colas – Adult/Technical
Karen Lisley Leiva – North Region
Reem Okab – Central Region
This story was originally published January 23, 2025 at 9:50 AM.
