{"id":125673,"date":"2026-01-21T01:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T01:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/125673\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T01:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T01:04:09","slug":"30-lee-county-teachers-are-finalists-for-golden-apple-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/125673\/","title":{"rendered":"30 Lee County teachers are finalists for Golden Apple awards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thirty teachers from Lee County schools have been named finalists in the annual Golden Apple Teacher Recognition Program. The Foundation for Lee County Public Schools began honoring teachers with this award 38 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Early each year, anyone can nominate extraordinary teachers in Lee County. From a whittled down list of 30 finalists, six are chosen as Golden Apple recipients and honored at a banquet later in the year.<\/p>\n<p>The finalists and the schools in which they teach are: <\/p>\n<p>Jessica Alimonti, Diplomat Middle<br \/>Jeffrey Armsworth, Lexington Middle<br \/>Jonathan Barr, Paul Laurence Dunbar Middle<br \/>Michael Benfer, Dunbar High<br \/>Cameron Brooks, Tice Elementary<br \/>Alisa Brown, Diplomat Middle<br \/>Darielle Callender, Franklin Park Elementary<br \/>Ingrid Echeverria, North Fort Myers High<br \/>Laurie Faye, South Fort Myers High<br \/>Wendy Fiore, Cypress Lake Middle<br \/>Lisa Flannery, Lee Virtual School<br \/>Steven Gainey, East Lee County High<br \/>Brittany Gardiner, Oak Hammock Middle<br \/>Joseph Giangreco, The Sanibel School<br \/>Cheyenne Grant, Sunshine Elementary<br \/>Catherine Griffin, Dunbar High<br \/>Anne Hester, East Lee County High<br \/>Stephanie Liljegren, River Hall Elementary<br \/>Christina Marco, River Hall Elementary<br \/>Catherine Mattison, East Lee County High<br \/>Elizabeth O\u2019Connor, Ray V. Pottorf Elementary<br \/>Megan Price, James Stephens Elementary<br \/>Rhonda Rainer, Caloosa Elementary<br \/>Arial Raulerson, Lehigh Senior High<br \/>Krista Rivera, Gulf Elementary<br \/>Christian Saravia, Harns Marsh Middle<br \/>Quinn Schnabel, Diplomat Middle<br \/>Laurie Smiley, Dunbar High<br \/>Gabriel Waldinger, Three Oaks Middle<br \/>Michaela Zawisza, Trafalgar Elementary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thirty teachers from Lee County schools have been named finalists in the annual Golden Apple Teacher Recognition Program.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":{"0":"post-125673","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cape-coral","8":"tag-cape-coral","9":"tag-cape-coral-headlines","10":"tag-cape-coral-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}