ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 A Jacksonville teacher was surprised with a national award this week during Teacher Appreciation Week.<\/p>\n
Watch the video HERE<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n KIPP Jacksonville Public Schools announced that Lekeshi Wormley, a 10th-grade biology teacher at KIPP Bold City High School, was named a 2026 Harriett Ball Excellence in Teaching Award winner.<\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Wormley was one of 10 teachers selected out of more than 8,000 KIPP educators nationwide. <\/p>\n The award recognizes outstanding teaching and includes a $10,000 prize.<\/p>\n School leaders, coworkers, and students surprised Wormley with the honor during a special celebration on campus.<\/p>\n KIPP says Wormley helped set a new academic standard at the school. <\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n During the 2024-25 school year, 71% of her students passed Florida\u2019s end-of-course biology exam, the highest pass rate for any end-of-course exam in the school\u2019s history.<\/p>\n Beyond the classroom, Wormley also serves as the school\u2019s science department chair and leads the Health Occupations Students of America chapter, helping students prepare for careers in healthcare.<\/p>\n \u201cMs. Wormley represents the very best of what it means to be an educator,\u201d Zac West, chief operating officer of KIPP Jacksonville Public Schools, said in a statement.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 A Jacksonville teacher was surprised with a national award this week during Teacher…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":787362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[7320,5229,7323,3188,723,7324,7310,7327,7325,7326,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,7322,7321],"class_list":{"0":"post-787361","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action-news-jax","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-cbs47","11":"tag-fl","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-fox30","14":"tag-jacksonville","15":"tag-jacksonville-fl","16":"tag-northeast-florida","17":"tag-southeast-georgia","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa","24":"tag-wfox","25":"tag-wjax"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116552435493719202","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}