Broken Arrow teacher Donna Gradel, the 2019 Oklahoma Teacher of the Year, is a finalist for the 2019 National Teacher of the Year.

Gov. Kevin Stitt, who pledged to make public education more effective, made the announcement last week in Broken Arrow.

“Donna’s teaching philosophy is that every student has potential no matter his or her start. Her heart captures perfectly the power of education itself – to see the best in a student and to cultivate that potential so the student can overcome all odds and become a job creator, a future U.S. president or city mayor, a community leader, a professional educator or a scientist,” Stitt said.

Gradel, who began her career as a special education teacher in the Appalachian Mountains, will travel to Washington, D.C., in February, where she and finalists will be interviewed by a national selection committee. The award will be announced this spring.

The four finalists are:

• Donna Gradel, the 2019 Oklahoma Teacher of the Year

According to the Council of Chief State School Officers, Gradel is “a high school science teacher who empowers her students to discover ways they can improve their local environment, including helping their city to develop and implement sustainable solutions to improve the water quality and natural habitats of the city’s waterways.”

• Kelly Harper, the 2019 District of Columbia Teacher of the Year

Harper is completing her seventh year as an educator and began her education career as a Teach For America corps member in Houston, Texas.

• Danielle Riha, the 2019 Alaska Teacher of the Year

Substitute teaching in Alaska inspired Riha to earn a teaching degree from The University of Alaska. Riha also has a master’s in education from Grand Canyon University, and is working on her doctorate in education at Cappella University.

• Rodney Robinson, the 2019 Virginia Teacher of the Year

In 2015, Robinson started teaching at Virgie Binford Education Center, a school inside the Richmond Juvenile Detention Center, in an effort to better understand the school-to-prison pipeline.

One of the finalists will be named the 2019 National Teacher of the Year (NTOY) this spring by a national selection committee and will spend the next year traveling the country as an ambassador for education and an advocate for all teachers and students.

Every year, each state, the U.S. extra-state territories, the District of Columbia, and the Department of Defense Education Activity selects exemplary teachers to serve as their State Teachers of the Year. From that group of 57 teachers, the NTOY Selection Committee selects four finalists based on a specific set of criteria. The NTOY is then selected after rigorous in-person interviews with the selection committee, which collectively represent millions of educators

Each year, since 1952, the president of the United States has recognized the National Teacher of the Year at a White House ceremony in the spring.

Gradel teaches environmental science and innovative research in Broken Arrow. She and her students created the Aqua for Tharaka campaign, which, for seven years, has provided clean water and protein for orphans in Kenya. Under Gradel’s leadership, Broken Arrow High School was the first Oklahoma school to receive a Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam grant, which provided funding for her students to research and develop a low-cost, sustainable fish food for developing countries.

Gradel is an executive committee member and co-founder of the “Together Project,” a collaboration between the city of Broken Arrow and Broken Arrow Public Schools dedicated to finding environmentally friendly ways to restore and enhance the city’s waterways.

Gradel serves as her school’s science department chair and is an advocate for STEM curriculum and facilities. In 2015, Gradel was one of ten educators throughout the nation to the receive the Henry Ford Innovation Nation Innovative Teacher Award. She was the recipient of the 2017 Presidential Innovation Award for Environmental Educators recognizing her innovative approach to environmental education.

She is an Oklahoma girls’ basketball state championship coach and Survivor Co-Chair for Tulsa’s Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. Gradel holds a bachelor of science and Master of Science from West Virginia University.

Gradel has been on full-time state Teacher of the Year duty for more than six months. She will keep touring the state as Oklahoma’s teacher ambassador until July. In July, Becky Oglesby of Yukon, the next Oklahoma teacher of the year, will assume those duties.