Nearly one year after being selected as Secondary Teacher of the Year, Amanda Talantis, hospitality and tourism teacher at Gulf Shores High School, has been named the top K-12 educator in the country for green education.

Talantis was selected for the award by the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council, headquartered in Washington D.C. with a mission to transform buildings and communities to advance human and environmental wellbeing.

Anisa Heming, director at the Center for Green Schools, said Talantis's application stood out among other applicants as her work reaches beyond the classroom to transform the district as a whole.

"To be nominated and honored with this award is a pretty big deal, (Talantis) was chosen among educators nominated from all over the place," Heming said. "But the work she has been doing transforming district is really unusual, we usually get nominations on behalf of teachers who are making incredible difference in their student's lives, but not so much work on district level to affect all schools in area, it just shows the scale of work that she does."

Heming said that while the center has given out awards for the past decade, it wasn't until 2020 that a category was added to honor the leadership of teachers invested in green education.

"Strangely, top educator was not an original category but it was introduced around the time of the pandemic, so we could honor hard work the teachers were doing and a lot of leadership," Heming said. "This year we had close to 200 nominations for all categories and distribution."

Talantis said that she was nominated for the award by fellow teacher and colleague Jessica Sampley, and was shocked to learn she had won the prestigious award.
"I was shocked when I found out the news," Talantis said. "I'm proud of my work, but to be chosen as the K-12 Educator this year was humbling."

Speaking of Talantis's work, she said she is still working on her farm-to-table program, as well as adding a few new initiatives.

When Talantis won Teacher of the Year last spring, she was leading a class that teaches students how to grow and cook their own produce. Students also learn how to serve the food and plan a farm-to-table event that incorporates the skills they learn in class.

"I have the same projects going on, but just version 2.0; our farm-to-table event is less than a month away and we have plans to be even bigger and better," Talantis said. "Our first ever Dolphin Walk Challenge is underway, we created the walking challenge to encourage teachers to get with their students for brain breaks, exercise and fresh air. We (also) got reusable lunch trays in the high school cafeteria. This was super exciting news and we're looking forward to expanding the program district-wide."