Meet the 2025 Swain & Weaver Award-Winning Educators

Keenen Allen Ladd

Kingmakers Facilitator, Denny International Middle School

“Keenen implements grade checks and regular check-ins, building relationships and teaching students to advocate for themselves and succeed academically. He empowers Kings and all scholars to be better versions of themselves moment-by-moment through praise, acknowledgement and encouragement. He checks in with teachers, sits in classes, does home visits, calls parents, does lunch duty, and coaches teachers. He organized our first Pan American flag raising ceremony, developed a system of feedback for our Instructional Assistants, plans and runs assemblies and helps run our Denny dinero award system. and developed monthly awards for “King of the month.” He also runs numerous events like Diaspora Connections that brought together the Black diaspora at Denny and the community for a night of food, fun, and connection.”

Diana Bridges

Special Education Teacher Case Manager, Pathfinder K-8

“Diana ensures that students with disabilities receive the support they need to access education while feeling welcomed and valued at school. She prioritizes delivering special education services within general education classes, collaborating closely with general education teachers to develop strategies aligned with Universal Design for Learning (UDL), providing differentiated instruction, accommodations, and co-teaching strategies that allow all students to participate meaningfully. She also prioritizes strong partnerships with families. She not only honored our child’s disability and our family’s cultural perspective but also ensured that all of his peers are supported in ways that respect their diverse learning styles, fostering a classroom environment where strengths are celebrated.”

Ross Humphries

Graduation Success Coordinator & Building 504 Coordinator, Interagency Academy

“He provides a platform for students, staff and colleagues to share their experiences, whether it be good or bad. He gains the trust and respect of the students, through his transparency and dedication, by showing up to every class. He created a teacher lead program within the school, facilitates a men’s group every week at the school, connects students with local resources for food and stable housing. He also partnered with Puget Consumers Co-op to create a cooking class program for our students. He reiterates almost daily, that the biggest form of racism can be implemented through having low standards. Mr. Humphries teaches the students that society may have low standards for kids based on their race but that they don’t have to have those same low standards for themselves.”

Kels Isaacson

Special Education Teacher, Eckstein Middle School

“Kels understands the incredible importance of moving past a fixed mindset to one of action and understanding. He creates an inclusive environment for all students and supports their needs while also advocating for them to be responsible adolescents. He showed enormous care in advocating for my daughter while also sharing personal experiences. Sharing one’s own lived experience as a teacher takes courage, and it can make all the difference in a middle schooler’s identity. He stands up and advocates for all his students in a fair and just manner. He can relate to these students, understands their anxieties, and he treats all with compassion.”

Rachel Myers

Special Education Teacher, West Seattle High School

“Rachel is an amazing person, educator, advocate for students with special needs at WSHS. We originally were at a different school and feeling stuck in the IEP. She listened to my frustrations and quickly connected me with the right people to get us transferred to WSHS. For the past two years I have seen her working day and night to support her students and athletes – helping them when a need is not met, advocating for funding for our athletic program with Special Olympics and overall making both the kids and the parents feel like there is a community and commitment to inclusion for our children.”

Nicole Petty

Health and CTE Teacher, Rainier Beach High School 

“Nicole is advisor to our Black Student Union who have brought and changed school policies that are barriers to racial equity. They have hosted several events such as The Black College Expo that brings in HBCU colleges and scholarships to Washington State and was held at RBHS for last 2 years. She works with a CBO to bring anti violence curriculum to every 9th grade student through her Health classes. She is also a fierce track coach and advocate for excellence in sports as a vehicle to build leadership, character and skill development. Nicole is one of our most trusted leaders who advocates for our Black and Brown scholars consistently. Nicole has found a way to build bridges with non-BIPOC staff by meeting them where they are at and providing education, training and meaningful dialogue to grow their practice and make authentic connections with youth.”

Baljinder ‘Bobbie’ Sohal

Assistant Principal, Interagency Academy 

“She recognizes the need to shift from punitive disciplinary methods to restorative practices for our students. Many of the students come with very high adverse childhood experience scores, and she uses this to help guide her approach with each student on an individual basis. She helps them by understanding the impact of their behavior on others within the school, family and community. Her approach helps to build stronger relationships and more successfully productive students. It also reduces the recidivism rate, by improving the livelihood of the students who she touches.”

Emery Walters

Kingmakers Facilitator, Interagency Academy

“Emery holds classes in person at University District Youth Center two days a week. He also leads PD for our school and shares much about his own personal journey in life and as an educator. His sharing inspires other educators to be more reflective about their biases, practices, and beliefs. He tells his students that back then when he was in high school most teachers would say he is not graduating and he’s a bad kid, so he went to a lot of different schools thinking he’s the problem but he proved them wrong.”

Jordyn Frostking

Science, Teacher, Denny International Middle School

“She has built upon the science curriculum by transforming lessons to be labs, experiential learning, and project-based learning. She is an incredibly devoted teacher that builds relationships and communities of belonging in her classroom. She builds in language learning strategies and normalizes multiple languages, as well as always thinking about the neurodiversity of students. Jordyn has also created a relationship with the UW science department, arranging for women scientists of color to come speak to the whole school, and disaggregating student attendance data to drive school-wide initiatives to best support students furthest from educational justice.”

Karla Nyquist

Health and Sciences Teacher, Rainier Beach High School

Micah Ventura

Teacher, Maple Elementary School

“Micah hosts a ‘BIG SCIENCE DAY’ event where they bring in pre-service teachers from multiple teacher education programs to see what science learning in a hands-on critical way can look across every grade level in their school. In this way, Teacher V has expanded a hands-on meaningful science curriculum to not only their classroom, not only every classroom in their school, but to future classrooms all over the district and state. Their teaching ground students in understanding the world around them, participating in place-based learning that promote hands-on learning experiences that get students out into the world and engaging with scientific phenomena.”