Jenai Sheffels Honored with the 2025 Dee Simon Teacher of Excellence Award

The Holocaust Center for Humanity was proud to announce Jenai Sheffels, teacher at Tesla STEM High School, as the 2025 Dee Simon Teacher of Excellence Award recipient. This annual award recognizes educators who inspire students to think critically, act with compassion and take responsibility for building a more just and humane world. Sheffels was presented with the award during the Holocaust Center’s annual Voices for Humanity Luncheon on Friday, October 24.

A dedicated member of the Holocaust Center’s Educators for Change (EFC) network since its inception, Sheffels has been a guiding force in shaping Holocaust education across Washington state. Her commitment to teaching difficult history through a lens of empathy and civic responsibility has made a profound impact on her students, as well as fellow educators.

Sheffels’s leadership has also taken the form of district-level leadership. She has served as a social studies department chair for many years at Tesla STEM High School. In that role she has been a thought partner to other department chairs, introduced strong supplemental resources and offered feedback on district-level policy updates, such as course descriptions and guidance. She has also integrated her leadership and expertise gained from the Holocaust Center for Humanity with her leadership in Lake Washington School District (LWSD) through facilitating professional learning opportunities, such as a teacher professional work session last February called “Successfully Teaching the Holocaust in Middle School.” Sheffels has also regularly extended invitations to staff members for events or exhibits at the center, such as last year’s Anne Frank exhibit.

Sheffels’ influence extends far beyond her classroom. She has traveled with the Holocaust Center for Humanity on its Holocaust Study Tour in Europe, participated in international study programs with Yahad–In Unum, Echoes & Reflections, and is a Museum Teacher Fellow with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). Sheffels was also selected to be part of the inaugural Powell Advanced Summer Institute Fellowship. She serves on the Holocaust Center’s Board of Directors, where she provides unique insight on strategy and programming from an educator perspective.

Each year, the Holocaust Center hosts its annual student art contest, The Art of Remembering, which invites young people to explore lessons of the Holocaust through creative expression. This year marked 80 years since liberation, and students were asked to focus their art on a local survivor’s story of liberation. This spring, two of Sheffels’ graduating seniors were recognized among the winners:

• 2nd Place: Arina Pastukhova
• Honorable Mention: Elizabeth James

Their work reflects the compassion, thoughtfulness and critical thinking that Sheffels fosters in her classroom every day.

“Jenai exemplifies everything this award stands for,” said Ilana Cone Kennedy, CEO of the Holocaust Center for Humanity. “She teaches her students to confront complexity, to question and to care deeply about the world around them.”

Here is a video that was showed at the event featuring Sheffels and some of her students at Tesla STEM: