A Pasco High School graduate will compete to be the nation’s best teacher after being named 2027 Teacher of the Year in Nevada. 

Brooke Wheatley, who graduated as a Bulldog in 1998, is the second Pasco High graduate in the past two years to earn a state Teacher of the Year honor, according to a Pasco School District release. Fellow PHS graduate Gabriela Whitemarsh was named Washington State’s 2026 Teacher of the Year. 

Wheatley briefly taught at Pasco High from 2014-15 before moving to Nevada. She now teaches social studies at Las Vegas’ Valley High School’s International Baccalaureate program.  

She also is a National Board Certified Teacher, a certified Teen Mental Health First Aid instructor and was recognized as Nevada History Teacher of the Year in 2021 from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and received Heart of Education Award in 2023. 

“I think every student just needs that one adult that can show them love and show them a future that they might not have seen for themselves,” Wheatley said in a statement. “And I can see that in every single one of my students.”