Meet Wake County’s best teachers. Ten are finalists for Teacher of the Year.

The Wake County school system announced its 10 finalists for 2019-20 Teacher of the Year on Wednesday with a series of surprise visits to the classrooms of the winners.

Superintendent Cathy Moore led a “surprise patrol” team that provided each finalist with a “Dream Big” gift basket and a Teacher of the Year T-shirt. These 10 finalists were picked from a field of 10,500 teachers and 20 semi-finalists.

The new Teacher of the Year will be announced on May 9 at a ceremony at the Raleigh Convention Center.

The finalists are:

▪ Wendy Branch, a math teacher at Longview High in Raleigh;

▪ Kelly Denny, a cross-categorical resource teacher at Lead Mine Elementary in Raleigh;

▪ Toiya Dunbar, the band and chorus teacher at East Garner Middle;

▪ Lindsey Evans, an eighth-grade social studies teacher at Apex Friendship Middle;

▪ Michael Grether, a world history/human geogaphy teacher at Rolesville High;

▪ Josh Gurkin, a science, physics and chemistry teacher at Apex High;

▪ Julia Huffman, an eighth-grade language arts at Carroll Middle in Raleigh;

▪ India Kingsberry, a sixth-grade math teacher at East Millbrook Middle in Raleigh;

▪ Lindsay McKee, a sixth-grade math and science teacher at Pine Hollow Middle in Raleigh;

▪ Melissa Richer, a Spanish teacher at Holly Springs High.