BROOKSVILLE — Part of Rachel Kingdom’s classroom at Central High School looks like a police forensics lab, with case files in folders and bits of “evidence” sorted on tables. The rest belongs to environmental science, where students learn about water conservation, farming techniques and ways to protect the planet and its resources.
That hands-on approach has earned Kingdom, 46, the Tampa Bay Times’ 2026 Newspaper in Education Educator of the Year award and its $1,500 grand prize.
Dawn Freijo of Hernando Christian Academy received an honorable mention.
The grand prize winner, runners-up and honorable mentions were recognized Sept. 16 at a reception at Junior Achievement of Tampa Bay. Their winning lessons, activities and projects will be featured in the 2026 NIE Educator of the Year Teacher Guide.
The annual award recognizes educators who use the Tampa Bay Times and its Newspaper in Education materials to enhance learning. Teachers, media specialists, paraprofessionals and other educators of any grade or subject at public and private schools in Citrus, Hernando, Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas and Polk counties may enter. The 2027 contest opens in January. For details, visit nieonline.com/tbtimes/educator_of_the_year_info.cfm.
Learning by doing
Kingdom’s forensics course is popular. About 90 students in grades 10 through 12 are enrolled across three periods, and there’s a waiting list. Students can take it for science or elective credit. Her environmental science classes have about 67 ninth-graders.
Not all of her forensics students will become crime scene investigators, she said, but learning the methods and rules of the profession could help them as adults, especially if they end up on a jury where such evidence is presented.
“That’s what I’m trying to do, is set them up for the real-world experience,” Kingdom said. “So they have prior knowledge, especially if they’re a juror.”
Professionals worry about the “CSI effect”: jurors who expect real crime labs to work like the ones on TV, producing fast, flawless results that leave no doubt about who committed a crime.
Reality is slower and more complicated. On TV, a crime seems to be solved in an hour, Kingdom said, “but it takes days.”
“It takes time, depending on what kind of evidence it is,” she said.
Kingdom brings in professionals from across the forensics field, including some who work for the defense. Among them is Daniel Crane, a former teacher of hers who runs his own bioinformatics lab.
“He is an expert witness in high-profile cases,” she said. “The O.J. Simpson trial, that was one of them that he did.”
Students read newspaper articles and work through simulated case files to learn how to handle evidence and build a narrative. They also study a range of real cases, including some that did not end in guilty verdicts.
This year, Kingdom’s students are teaming up with Central’s 911 dispatch, law studies and theater programs. Theater students will stage a crime scene, and Kingdom’s students will collect and analyze the evidence, write a report and hand it off to law studies students, who will assign roles for a mock trial.
“And then my kids are going to watch the trial, based on their evidence collection,” she said.
Closer to home, a campus crime scene simulation has students investigating the theft of the school’s bear mascot. There are nine possible suspects, something like a game of Clue, and a corner of the classroom holds the evidence: hair samples, fingerprints, fibers, shoe impressions and more.
Why teaching?
Kingdom found her calling while running classes at a summer educational camp during college.
“After obtaining a degree, I would go out into the field, and it became too monotonous,” she said. “But I loved teaching others.”
She went on to earn degrees in biology and chemistry, a master’s degree in chemistry and a master’s degree in comprehensive science in secondary education. Running the camp felt like giving back, she said. She liked instilling positive beliefs, and “I enjoy helping others.”
She taught at a university for nearly 10 years.
“I enjoyed getting the ‘aha’ moment with the students,” she said. “But also learned that I’d make more of an impact on high school, getting those students set up for success.”
Some former students have come back to tell her they went into forensics or teaching.
Room to breathe
Kingdom said she puts students at ease by letting each one know they matter to her and that she cares about them.
“I try to make it as inviting as I can in here, with the lights and the covers,” she said. Photos of nature scenes and objects in space cover the ceiling, which she said helps students calm down when they need to take a breath.
Whether the subject is the environment or forensics, students have a lot of say in how they learn.
“I give them prompts, but allow them to start their investigation,” she said. “So they have ownership, when it comes to learning.”
“I go beyond the classroom,” Kingdom said. “I care for all the students. I take my knowledge and try to expand it. I believe if you do for one, you do for all.”