Mission Bay High School\u2019s JP Balmat was among 10 finalists for the Grammy\u2019s 2026 Music Educator Award.<\/p>\n
Balmat, the campus\u2019 music director, along with the other nine finalists were set to find out during the Feb. 1 Grammy Awards telecast from Los Angeles who was selected for this year\u2019s honor. It went to Jennifer Jimenez of South Miami Senior High School in Miami, Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be great to have a Grammy statuette in our classroom at Mission Bay \u2026 no doubt about that,\u201d Balmat said in late January, before the announcement. \u201cIt is such an honor to even be considered for a nomination. The other nine nominees are all outstanding music teachers from around the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 10 finalists were announced in early December, chosen from more than 2,000 nominations from across the United States.<\/p>\n
The award \u201crecognizes current educators who have made a significant and lasting contribution to the field of music education and demonstrate a commitment to the broader cause of maintaining music education in schools,\u201d according to Grammy officials.<\/p>\n
As winner, Jimenez received a $10,000 honorarium and a matching grant for her school\u2019s music program. The other nine finalists, including Balmat, each received a $1,000 honorarium and matching grants.<\/p>\n
Balmat said he has his dream job working at Mission Bay High School, from which he graduated in 2002. After graduating from college he returned to the campus in 2006 as a teacher. He currently teaches eight ensembles, spanning from beginning orchestra to the award-winning jazz groups such as the Mambo Orchestra and The Preservationists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mission Bay High School\u2019s JP Balmat was among 10 finalists for the Grammy\u2019s 2026 Music Educator Award. Balmat,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[28681,78891,78890,25013,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-162721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-grammy-awards","tag-grammys-2026-music-educator-award","tag-jp-balmat","tag-mission-bay-high-school","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}