‘I’m on a cloud’: Second grade teacher wins Miami-Dade’s Teacher of the Year
As soon as Melissa Abril-Dotel realized she had won the “Teacher of the Year” title for Miami-Dade County Public Schools on Tuesday, she looked down and focused on her deep breaths.
“I was trying to keep myself calm,” the second grade teacher at North Beach Elementary told the Herald afterward, chuckling. “I couldn’t believe it.”
A few minutes later, after hugging her 9-year-old daughter Chloe, she took the stage at the the annual ceremony at the DoubleTree by Hilton Miami Airport & Convention Center at 711 NW 72nd Ave and told the about 1,100 attendees: “I’m thrilled and honored.”
“I’m so proud of her,” said Chloe, a fourth-grade student at North Beach. “My mom works really hard.”
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Abril-Dotel began teaching in 2006 at Coral Way K-8 Center then transferred in 2008 to Christina M. Eve Elementary in West Kendall, where she taught third grade for seven years.
In 2015, she moved to North Beach Elementary. There, she taught kindergarten for seven years until she moved up to second grade about two years ago. She also leads a state program that encourages students to read books as the school lacks a media specialist, and manages the school’s edible, composting and butterfly garden.
She got a bachelor’s in elementary education from Florida State University in 2006, and a master’s in teaching English as a second or foreign language and urban education from Florida International University in 2010.
“I never planned to get here,” Abril-Dotel, 40, said on Tuesday about her 17-year career. “I just focused on the day-to-day with my students. Now I’m on a cloud.”
Francisco R. Walker, the namesake of Miami-Dade’s annual teacher of the year award, was a sixth-grade science teacher at Miami Edison Middle who was stabbed to death by a trespassing 18-year-old in 1982.
Asked what it means to hold that title, Abril-Dotel said it’s a distinction that she hopes to share with other teachers, too.
“I can’t wait to get back to the classroom. I want to see my students tomorrow,” she said. “There will be a lot of screams, I’m sure, a lot of hugs and kisses.”
What does it mean to be MDCPS Teacher of the Year?
Abril-Dotel received $3,500 in cash, a $1,500 gift basket and a 2024 Toyota Corolla for winning the top honor among the district’s more than 17,000 teachers. She will carry the county’s Teacher of the Year title into the next school year, and perform duties like showing her class to the public and attending district events.
She will also advance to the state-level competition later this spring. Last year, the Florida Teacher of the Year got a $50,000 award.
She competed against three other finalists: Nicolas Acosta, an aeronautics and logistics professor at Miami Springs Senior High School; Alina Hughes Robinson, a hospitality teacher at Robert Morgan Educational Center; and William Torres, a graphic design and animation professor at Robert Morgan Educational Center.
Torres, 63, came in second.
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Miami Dade County Public Schools Superintendent Jose Dotres, who visited the finalists’ classrooms recently, praised all of them.
“Their stories are incredible,” he said. “You enter these classrooms, and you immediately feel the love, not only the love from teachers to the students but also the reverse. It is there. It is present.”
Tuesday’s event featured Ron Magill, Zoo Miami’s communications director as the emcee, and a performance by New World School of the Arts students.
During the ceremony, the school district also recognized the 2025 rookie teacher of the year, Juan Gabriel Martin from Citrus Grove K-8 Center, and the runner-up, Diaunte Jenkins from Norland Middle School.
‘There’s so much power in being a teacher’
Abril-Dotel, a Miami native, wanted to be a teacher for as long as she can remember.
At first, she only liked it because she would write on the whiteboard and grade papers.
But then she got to fifth grade and her mother died, she found a new reason, or two rather: Ms. Langley and Mr. Conde, her homeroom teachers at Coral Way Elementary.
“Losing her left a void, and it was teachers who helped me get through it that year. I was a reserved and quiet girl, but they were able to connect with me, like they would leave little Post-its with notes of encouragement,” she told the Herald last week. “That’s when I realized, ‘Wow, there’s so much power in being a teacher.’ I could possibly change a life by being a teacher.”
Abril-Dotel eventually graduated from Coral Way Elementary, Carver Middle School and Coral Gables High School, and pursued her dream.
As a teacher at North Beach, she now treats her classroom like a family. At the beginning of each school year, she sends a survey to parents asking them about their kids’ likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, and what holidays they celebrate.
“They’ll say stuff like she likes gymnastics or she likes being praised,” she said. “It’s helpful.”
Once the kids get to the classroom, which she decorates to feel like a home, Abril-Dotel reads a book called “Class is a Family” by Shannon Olsen, and they do icebreakers so that everyone can get to know each other.
“After we’ve built relationships, we can start learning,” Abril-Dotel said.
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And they first learn how to learn.
“I teach them about a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset, and that helps,” she said. “I bring in a potato and a sponge, and I fill the sponge with water to show them that’s the knowledge. That sets the positive environment for them to want to learn.”
Overall, Abril-Dotel describes herself as a hands-on, collaborative and fulfilled teacher: When she teaches students about soil, she takes students to the garden and shows them how to compost. When a new teacher arrives at her schools, she offers to share her lesson plans. And every day, she feels “really happy.”
“I feel like I don’t work a day in my life,” she said.
