Ryan Kelley- 2023 Teacher of the Year

Ryan J. Kelley, a Booker High School Magnet Program Administrator for Sarasota County Schools, has been named a Law-Related Education Teacher of the Year by the American Lawyers Alliance. The American Lawyers Alliance, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote understanding and appreciation of the law and the American legal system selected Mr. Kelley for his several years of work within the schools and legal community. 

In Mr. Kelley’s role as Administrator of the Sarasota County Magnet Program, and Law Academy Coordinator, he has focused on Legal, Law Enforcement and Business Studies. He has worked with the SCBA and CDI to recruit and retain talented future lawyers in his community. Mr. Kelley has coached the Mock Trial Team since 2016 and even has a hybrid classroom/courtroom arrangement for his students. His students annually participate in the SCBA’S annual Martin Luther King Jr. Essay competition in which his students have won first place four consecutive years. 

Mr. Kelley coordinates over 6 annual field trips for all Law Academy students: Sarasota County Jail, Sarasota Police Department Headquarters, Sarasota Emergency Operations and a court case viewing in the 12th Circuit. Mr. Kelley is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Educational Leadership at the University of Alabama.

As The Honorable Charles E. Williams, Circuit Judge, Twelfth Judicial Circuit of Florida, writes of Mr. Kelley “He personifies everything that you are looking for in your criteria of helping his students understand the role of the courts, law enforcement agencies and the legal profession.”