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<\/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 <<<<\/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: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/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: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/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":2,"featured_media":265933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[344,347,28,348,116,351,118,117,349,350,346,345],"class_list":["post-265932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action-news-jax","tag-cbs47","tag-florida","tag-fox30","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-fl","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-northeast-florida","tag-southeast-georgia","tag-wfox","tag-wjax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265932","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=265932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}