Nisha Phillip-Malahoo, a UCF alumna, poses for her Teacher of the Year portrait at the Stellar Awards on Jan. 15, 2025. She won Teacher of the Year at Pinewood Elementary School for the second time.
Courtesy of Nisha Phillip-Malahoo
When Nisha Phillip-Malahoo began teaching 13 years ago, she felt overwhelmed by everything she hadn’t learned in college. Now, the UCF alumna is one of six finalists for the Toyota Family Teacher of the Year award, a national honor recognizing educators who build partnerships between schools and families.
For Malahoo, the recognition comes after years of work that began in the classroom. She knew how to teach math, but she quickly realized her students brought more into the classroom than what could be covered in a lesson.
“It’s a whole lot of ‘you don’t know,’” Malahoo said. “I can teach you one plus one is two, but if you have severe learning gaps, if you’re hungry, if you have emotional trauma, there’s a whole lot of stuff that goes into being an effective teacher.”
While earning her master’s and doctorate in education at UCF, Malahoo heard from guest speakers who changed how she viewed success. She recounted one mathematician who told the class about his struggles with math and how he didn’t fully understand it until he was in his 30s.
“Don’t be intimidated or fascinated by a person who has letters after their name,” Malahoo said. “It does not mean they are the smartest person in the room; it just means that person has grit and perseverance, and that’s all you need.”
Dr. Elsie Olan, a professor emerita in UCF’s College of Community Innovation and Education, saw Malahoo develop that mindset during her time at UCF. Olan said Malahoo learned to recognize that her experiences and perspectives had a place in her research and could benefit her students.
“It’s her confidence to share with leaders, administrators and anyone outside her field, and the importance of why teaching mathematics and better preparing teachers and students matters in this world,” Olan said. “The program strengthened her voice—that was beautiful.”
Malahoo carried that perspective into her classroom. Over the next seven years, she organized programs, such as Monster Math Night, holiday parties and cultural days while balancing teaching, motherhood and her education.
“I was spending hours of my own time planning and plotting all these programs for my students because they need it,” Malahoo said. “And I was the one that was able to do it.”
As her work with students grew, so did the ways she could serve them beyond the classroom. That work led to her current role as director of education programs and community engagement for Above and Beyond for Change, a nonprofit that connects communities with resources and develops programs to address local needs.
Dr. Sarah Bush, a professor in UCF’s College of Community Innovation and Education, first met Malahoo when she began her master’s degree in 2019. She said the community work Malahoo does now is an extension of what she was already doing.
“It helped her think in a systems way of how she could take what she had done on the ground and systemically implement that more broadly for greater change,” Bush said.
Malahoo’s days now take her beyond school walls. She may coach a basketball team, clean out a food pantry, pick up eggs from a farm to distribute or help feed people experiencing homelessness.
Her experiences with families have changed the way she approaches circumstances. Earlier in her career, she said she might assume a parent did not help a child with their homework. Her experiences taught her how to look beyond what she sees on the surface.
“What I’ve learned is that hardships look different, what you can do looks different, what you measure success with looks different,” Malahoo said. “And we should never judge any family because we don’t know what that home life might look like.”
That perspective is reflected in the food and clothing pantries she helped create. After seeing students arrive at school without warm clothes, Malahoo began bringing her own children’s jackets and shoes to school before asking other teachers to help.
Now, she is working to establish a food pantry at Pinewood Elementary School, where donated food was previously stored in the dean’s classroom because there was nowhere else to put it.
“I always want whatever attention that I get, that folks understand that I’m the face, but behind me, there is a whole school that’s filled with boys and girls who need help, who need support,” Malahoo said.
Looking ahead, Malahoo hopes to create a community center where immigrant families can find food, get help with resumes, look for jobs and find ways to support one another.
“Sometimes you’re the one needing help, and sometimes you’re the one giving help,” Malahoo said. “So I don’t really want folks to come to me when they need something; I want folks to come to me when they can give something too. So that’s a place that I want to create.”