Garden City High School science teacher, Mark Shera Cruz, was recognized on Saturday, April 12th, at the Region 1 Kansas Teacher of the Year award ceremony in Salina, Kansas. In addition to being recognized as a nominee, he was chosen as one of three semi-finalists for the Region 1 Secondary Teacher of the Year.
Garden City Achieve Special Education teacher, Caitlin Sotelo, was also recognized as a nominee during the Region 1 Kansas Teacher of the Year award ceremony.
Nominations are made in each of four regions in the state. Region 1 covers the first U.S. congressional district in Kansas. The Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE), sponsor of the KTOY program, appoints regional selection panels comprised of teachers, education administrators and higher education representatives to select semifinalists and finalists from each region aligned with the state’s four congressional districts.
Tracie Betz, a K-6 Special Education teacher at Quinter Elementary School USD 293, and Tranda Strnad, an art teacher at Republic County High School in Republic County USD 109, were named as Region 1 finalists for the 2026 Kansas Teacher of the Year (KTOY) award. 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.
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.
This year, 136 educators across the state were nominated for the Kansas Teacher of the Year distinction. This award recognizes excellent teaching in the elementary and secondary classrooms of the state.
Each panel selects six semifinalists – three elementary teachers and three secondary teachers. From those semifinalists, the panel in each region then selects one elementary finalist and one secondary finalist. The Kansas Teacher of the Year is selected from among the state’s eight regional finalists.
The mission of the KTOY program is to build and utilize a network of exemplary teachers who are leaders in the improvement of schools, student performance and the teaching profession.
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