Not every state can lay claim to having a Milken Educator Award winner in a given year, making what happened within Pocatello-Chubbuck School District 25 on Friday all the more impressive.

The Milken Family Foundation surprised two different District 25 teachers with the coveted award, which comes with a $25,000 prize for each educator to spend as he or she sees fit.

Milken honored Tiffany Lemos, a third-grade teacher at Chubbuck Elementary School, and Dane Beorchia, a career and technical education teacher at Highland High School, during separate school assemblies Friday morning.

Prior to Friday, Idaho hadn’t had a Milken Educator named since 2013, when Katie Graupman of Spirit Lake won the honor, according to the foundation.

The Gem State has had 17 Milken Educator Award winners in its history. Lemos and Beorchia were the first winners ever chosen from District 25.

“This is very unusual to (have two awards) within the same district ... unless it’s a very large district,” explained Jane Foley, senior vice president of the Milken Educator Awards and the Milken Family Foundation. “It’s very emblematic of the excellence that’s here that we could find two.”

The Santa Monica, California-based foundation deems its annual award recipients to be among the top 1 percent of the roughly 3 million U.S. teachers.

Teachers aren’t nominated. Rather, the foundation partners with state departments of education and education-related councils and advisory boards to find educators who meet specific criteria. Typically 30 to 40 teachers per year receive the award. This year, Milken honored more than 60 teachers because the award presentations didn’t occur last year due to the pandemic.

“We’re looking for educators with innovative practices — things in the classroom that are exciting and engaging and also have results,” Foley said.

She emphasized it isn’t a lifetime achievement award, and Milken prioritizes teachers who are early in their careers and will be teaching for decades to come.

Local dignitaries, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Sherri Ybarra and enthusiastic student bodies attended both ceremonies.

On the 2019 Idaho Standards Achievement Test, Lemos’ students achieved 75 percent proficiency in math and 71 percent proficiency in language arts, which is well above state averages.

Milken officials explained Lemos utilizes “brain breaks” and meditation videos in the classroom, understanding the importance of focusing on the body to also improve the mind. She also raised funds through a campaign to create alternative seating to accommodate students’ differing learning styles and promote movement in the classroom.

She said she emphasizes the importance of perseverance and having grit to her students, which pays off when it’s time to take state tests.

Lemos attended Marsh Valley High School and earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education in 2011 and a master’s in educational technology in 2013. She earned both degrees from Boise State University.

She’s taught in Idaho for 10 years, starting her career in Paul and spending a year working abroad in Thailand, teaching English, before joining Chubbuck Elementary School six years ago.

One of her favorite classroom traditions is selecting a different student each week as an honorary explorer. That student gets to lead the class in lines, sit in an office chair and share personal trivia throughout the week.

“It’s just a fun way to get to know more about that student each week,” Lemos said.

She said her degree in educational technology proved invaluable when the district shifted to remote learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Beorchia built a health career and technical program at Highland from the ground up and led efforts for his students to become certified for dual enrollment with local universities and technical schools, offering his students the chance to learn extremely difficult content, according to Milken.

Foley said Beorchia’s students have a 100 percent pass rate when taking Workplace Readiness and Medical Terminology Dual Credit exams.

Beorchia was raised in Wendell.

“I grew up in a small town where there’s not a lot of college education. Neither of my parents have a college education, so the only people I knew who had a college education were my teachers,” Beorchia said. “Growing up, to me teaching was the ultimate profession. None of my friends had parents who were attorneys or doctors or anything like that so to me education was the ticket. It’s what I wanted to do from the time that I was little.”

He earned a degree in health education from Idaho State University in 2010 and started working at Highland in 2011. Beorchia is also the head junior varsity football coach at Highland.

Beorchia said he was surprised to receive the award, noting he’s learned a great deal from the other outstanding teachers at Highland.

“I think the teachers in this building are unreal,” Beorchia said.

Beorchia added that he wouldn’t be a teacher today if not for all the great teachers who educated him along the way.

During the Highland ceremony, Ybarra offered statistics to demonstrate that Idaho education doesn’t get the credit it deserves. According to Ybarra Idaho students have improved from ranking 31st in the nation for scholastic achievement to 17th.

“You are outranking 33 other states in the nation,” Ybarra said. “Guess what else? You are also fifth in the nation for college and career readiness and No. 1 in the nation for college credits earned while still in high school, and your graduation rate is higher than it’s ever been.”

She said Idaho students have also performed better during the pandemic than students from most other states.

The awards program started in 1987, recognizing elementary and secondary school teachers, principals and specialist from throughout the country.