LYNN — CASA educator Kayla Gaynor is in the running for the national “America’s Favorite Teacher” competition, and she’s calling on the Lynn community to help push her to the top before voting closes.
Gaynor, a ninth-grade algebra and geometry teacher at the City Arts and Sciences Academy (CASA), said the opportunity could bring major benefits not only to her but to her students and school.
“If I win, Bill Nye would come to my school, which would be such a cool experience for our students,” Gaynor said. “I’d also win a vacation and a big lump of money,” she said.
A win would also mean national recognition and resources for the relatively new project-based learning school. Gaynor emphasized that her primary motivation is her students.
“My students absolutely deserve it. I have the best students anywhere and I will fight for that,” she said. “I think that it’s really important that we bring opportunities like… having really amazing speakers and having really amazing hands-on things to kids in our communities, but especially in Lynn.”
Originally from Minnesota, Gaynor attended the University of Minnesota for her undergraduate studies before moving to Boston in 2012 to pursue graduate school at Boston University. She said her path into education was driven by a love of the school environment itself.
“School has always been a place that I loved, and I realized in college that I didn’t want to leave the community that public school created for me. I wanted to help create it for others,” Gaynor said. “Teaching is a small but big way that I can add kindness, joy, and confidence to the world.”
After teaching in Chelsea and Malden, Gaynor recently joined Lynn Public Schools to work closer to home. “It was really important to me to start teaching in the community where I live,” she stated, adding that the district’s project-based learning model drew her in.
If she wins the competition’s $25,000 prize, Gaynor plans to reinvest much of it into her school.
“I would use the majority of it to help contribute needed resources to my school,” she explained, citing technology upgrades, student workspaces, field trips, and maker space funding as priorities.
Gaynor also acknowledged the personal impact the prize could have. “I’d love to use that money to make improvements on my house in Lynn and also provide more resources to my colleagues and students,” she said, noting that financial stability helps teachers remain in the communities they serve.
She recalled one of her most memorable classroom moments as a collaborative lesson on linear functions, where students uncovered that multiple representations all described the same question.
“By the end of the lesson, students were helping each other see important details and leaping out of their seats to add to the discussion. The best part was that I just facilitated it. They did deep thinking and learning,” she said.
While she admits she’s “not like a social media person,” Gaynor is embracing the spotlight for the sake of her students and school.
Voting for America’s Favorite Teacher ends Thursday at 7 p.m., and Gaynor hopes the Lynn community will rally behind her. A vote can be cast every 24 hours.
Anyone interested in voting may do so at https://americasfavteacher.org/2026/kayla-gaynor.
