Toyota Family Teacher of the Year Application 2024

Thank you for taking the time to nominate an exceptional family educator for the 2024 Toyota Family Teacher of the Year Award. Since 1997, the National Center for Families Learning (NCFL) and Toyota have partnered to recognize educators from across the nation who use a strong multi-generational approach to learning and focus on building effective family-school partnerships that support student achievement and school improvement.

The educator selected as the Toyota Family Teacher of the Year will receive a $20,000 grant to further ongoing family engagement efforts. One runner-up will receive $5,000. The winner and runner-up will be officially announced in Louisville, Kentucky on November 20th during the 2024 Families Learning Conference, NCFL’s premier convening of family learning educators, practitioners, researchers, and community-based organizations.

Nomination requirements:

• Each family educator must be nominated by someone who knows the nominee’s work well and has a thorough knowledge of the nominee’s strengths, approaches, and collective positive impact on behalf of children and families.
• Anyone with strong knowledge about the nominee’s work is eligible to complete the nomination form.
• Parenting adults wishing to nominate their student’s teacher are strongly encouraged to partner with a school administrator or the teacher’s supervisor to complete the nomination form.
• Programs may nominate up to two family educators using separate nomination forms.
• Self-nominations will be disqualified.
• Incomplete nominations or late submissions will not be accepted.
• Nominations must include a letter of support from the nominee’s school principal or organization executive director, unless the nominator is the nominee's principal or executive director.

Nominees should meet the following criteria:

• Work in the United States for a school- or community-based program that engages families in the educational process.
• Demonstrate a record of success engaging families in educational settings.
  Examples of successful efforts include, but are not limited to: 
   
  • creating opportunities for families, schools, and communities to build their capacity for home-to-school partnerships;
  • providing better support for parenting adults to address their children’s academic needs;
  • building effective family–school partnerships that support student achievement and school improvement;
  • targeting the needs voiced by families—including their cultural and linguistic needs—and those of the communities in which they live;
  • using evidence-based practices that show promise;
  • connecting families to their children’s school or community-based education programs;
  • focusing on children’s academics, oral language or vocabulary development, and/or reading and literacy development;
  • connecting families to a greater community-wide network;
  • advocating for parent inclusion, input, and leadership.
     
• Have a passion and persistence for supporting the engagement of parenting adults. 
• Work alongside parenting adults and children using a strong multi-generational approach to help them learn together in innovative ways.
• Implement innovative ideas for expanding their program to benefit families and/or to engage more families.
• Serve communities and families with high literacy and socioeconomic needs.

Award requirements:

• Winning educators will be asked to participate in NCFL’s extensive outreach activities to promote their practices and programs, including:
  • Participation in the 2024 Families Learning Conference in Louisville, Kentucky from November 18 to 20 (travel & lodging expenses will be covered by NCFL).  
  • Participation in a Teacher of the Year webinar in the spring of 2025. 
• Award funds must be expended on the designated family engagement project during the 2025 calendar year. 
• Award winners will commit to sharing project and family stories with NCFL on an ongoing basis, to be used for communications throughout the year—including NCFL social media platforms.
• Share with NCFL any intellectual property (including lesson plans, handbooks, posters, etc., where applicable) created to support grant activities. 
• Share an end-of-year report with NCFL outlining the project.

Nominators can preview a PDF of the application in English* or Spanish. Official nominations must be submitted via the online form in English or Spanish*. Incomplete entries can be saved and returned to at another time. All required sections must be completed before submitting nominations.

The deadline to submit nominations is 11:59 p.m. PDT on Monday, June 17, 2024. For assistance or questions, please contact Sara Ulliman at sulliman@familieslearning.org.

*This application can be translated into additional languages by emailing Sara Ulliman at sulliman@familieslearning.org. Translation requests will be completed within 3-4 business days.

Application definitions:

• Best practices – Methods or techniques that have been shown by research and experience to work better than other methods over time
• Literacy rate – The percentage of the population of a given age group that can read and write
• Nominator – Person completing application
• Nominee – Educator being nominated
• Multigenerational approach – Engaging parenting adults and children in learning
• Socioeconomic status – A combination of factors that describe families’ access to opportunities. Factors include income and overall financial security, education, and resources.