Congratulate Our 2021 Teacher of the Year: Daina Faling With the 2021 school year officially wrapped up, one teacher knows it's been an adventure: Daina Faling, who won our Teacher Tuesday competition in January of 2021 and is now, officially, our Teacher of the Year! Faling works for Rice Elementary School, and when we interviewed her after her January 2021 win, she said that her favorite thing about being a teacher are her "Smarties" (her students). Interviewing her after her big Teacher of the Year win in May 2021, Faling says that these first-graders continue to make her job worthwhile during the hardships of the pandemic.