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April 22, 2025
Mandy Burger - Teacher of the Year Semifinalist
- SALINA —Tracie Betz, an early childhood special education preschool teacher at Quinter Elementary School, Quinter USD 293, and Tranda Strnad, art teacher at Republic County High School, Republic County USD 109, were named Region 1 finalists for the 2026 Kansas Teacher of the Year (KTOY) award program during a ceremony on Saturday, April 12.
- This award recognizes excellent teaching in the elementary and secondary classrooms of the state. The KTOY Region 1 awards banquet took place at Tony’s Pizza Event Center, in Salina.
- As finalists for the Kansas Teacher of the Year distinction, Betz and Strnad each will receive a $2,000 cash award from Security Benefit, the major corporate partner for the KTOY program. In addition, they are each now eligible to be named Kansas Teacher of the Year, which will be announced during a ceremony on Saturday, Sept. 20, in Wichita.
- Betz and Strnad were among six KTOY semifinalists from Region 1, which covers Kansas’s 1st U.S. congressional district.
- The other Region 1 KTOY semifinalists are Whitney George, fourth grade teacher at Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School, Manhattan-Ogden USD 383; Katherine Jimenez, a music teacher at Hugoton Elementary School, Hugoton USD 210; Mandy Burger, family and consumer science teacher at Ellsworth High School, Ellsworth USD 327; and Mark Shera Cruz, a physics, human antimony and physiology teacher at Garden City High School, Garden City USD 457.