LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Another local teacher is just two rounds of voting away from being America’s Favorite Teacher.
Monday, FOX5 introduced you to Lisa Smith, a special education teacher in North Las Vegas.
Lamont Russell is also up for the award, and like Lisa, is also a quarterfinalist. He teaches Choir at Liberty High School. If he wins, he’ll receive a $25,000 check, a photoshoot and article in Reader’s Digest, and a six-day vacation in Maui.
Russell has 27 seniors graduating this year, 17 of whom were in choir all four years of high school.
“They met me during choir on a computer,” he said of those 17 students. “And I don’t know if I would’ve stayed, but they stayed. They stayed after COVID.”
Russell says if we wins, he’d like to give back to some of them.
“I’ve been wanting to give two of my choir seniors scholarships,” he said, adding that he’d also like to give to a scholarship for music students in his hometown of Ardmore, Oklahoma, created in honor of his high school choir teacher.
In addition, Russell wants to give some of his winnings to a program in CCSD for special needs students called Patriot Pals.
He hopes to set a nationwide example for people to realize the quality of teachers in CCSD.
“There are some great teachers in every building, and I think I would love to show that,” he said. “I’d love to show that even though we’re the fifth largest, and we’ve had some crazy stuff going on the last year, we have people that care about our kids.”
You can vote for Russell to make the semifinals here.
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