Lexington educator receives ‘Oscars of teaching’ national award, plus a $25K cash prize
A Lexington educator received a big surprise Friday when he was named a winner of the Milken Educator Award, a national honor that the Milken Family Foundation says is hailed as the “Oscars of Teaching.”
Jacob Ball, an agriculture teacher at Carter G. Woodson Academy, was named a recipient of the award at a school assembly Friday morning. Every year, Milken picks up to 75 award winners across the country and honors them for their excellence in education.
The award comes with a $25,000 cash prize and an all-expense paid trip to California in the summer to be further recognized.
After receiving the award, Ball said he was surprised and had no idea what the assembly was for when he got to school Friday. He eventually started to realize something was going on, but thought the agriculture program or the school was being recognized.
“When they started talking about recognizing an individual teacher and some of my agriculture scholars got pulled up there, my heart started beating a little bit faster and it kind of set in that I might be recognized,” Ball said. “It was an experience I’ll never forget.”
Several people were in attendance to celebrate Ball’s award, including Jane Foley, senior vice president of the Milken Educator Awards; Robin Fields Kinney, Kentucky’s interim education commissioner; and a gym packed full of excited students. Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman was also there to congratulate Kentucky’s newest Milken Educator Award winner.
“Thank you for what you do for your students,” Coleman said. “Thank you for what you do for this school, for this community and for being an inspiration across the Commonwealth and now across the country.”
Ball grew up on a family farm in Culvertown and participated in his local Future Farmers of America club while in high school.
He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in agricultural education from the University of Kentucky in 2011, according to the Milken Awards. He went on to earn a Master of Arts degree in education from the University of the Cumberlands in 2015 and an education specialist degree in administration from UK in 2018.
Why Lexington Milken Award winner got into teaching
Ball said he got into education because of the impact his teachers had on him while growing up. He now teaches sixth through 12th graders and teaches agriculture through the lens of African American and Hispanic cultural histories.
“A lot of my goal is to try and make the agriculture industry more representative of the people that we’re feeding across the country,” Ball said Friday. “These young men have taken the opportunity and run with it.”
Ball is now in his 13th year of teaching and his fifth year of running the agriculture program at Carter G. Woodson Academy, a program he started from scratch. In recent years, six of Ball’s students have received scholarships to historically black colleges and universities and 100% of his students passed their end-of-year exams last year, according to the Milken Awards.
He created an Agriculture Wall of Fame, which highlights the contributions of Hispanic and Black farmers across the country, according to the Milken Awards. He also established the school’s FFA club and a Junior Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Related Sciences chapter in partnership with UK.
“When you visit a classroom like Mr. Ball’s, it shows just how much he goes above and beyond what is expected of him in a way that inspires his students to do the same,” Kinney said in a news release. “Mr. Ball is more than just a teacher; he is a true advocate for his students and is a pillar of support within the school community.”
Ball said he hopes one of the biggest takeaways from Friday’s ceremony was that there are opportunities for recognition in education. He hopes that encourages some of his students to pursue a career in teaching.
“To have our students see that being an educator and a teacher is something that you can get recognized on this level for in a school-wide celebration like this is really neat and it’s been an awesome opportunity,” Ball said. “If we inspire one or two students in this audience to be a teacher someday then it was worth all the fanfare and effort.”
This story was originally published October 27, 2023 at 1:02 PM.
