The Hawaiʻi State Department of Education (HIDOE) announced Kalani High School’s science and Career and Technical Education (CTE) teacher Bryan Silver as the 2025 Hawaiʻi State Teacher of the Year.

The honor is presented annually to a classroom teacher selected from more than 13,000 HIDOE educators. Silver was among 15 Complex Area Teachers of the Year and the Charter School Teacher of the Year recognized today.

This month, Silver, who has been a teacher in Honolulu for 24 years, became the first Hawaiʻi recipient of the 2024 Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence, winning $50,000 for Kalani High School’s robotics program. At Kalani High School, Silver keeps his days busy as the Career and Technical Education teacher leading four levels of Engineering classes, STEM Capstone and running four after-school robotic programs FIRST Robotics, FIRST Tech Challenge, VEX and Drones.

Silver was instrumental in establishing robotics programs statewide, helping to increase the number of LEGO FIRST robotics teams to over 220 in this burgeoning new space. As advisor for the local, national and international award-winning robotics squad Team Magma 3008. Silver secured $283,000 in grant support for Team Magma and developed three student-run businesses that continue generating funds to keep the robotics programs solvent.

In addition, Silver created the Engineering CTE course at Kalani High School from which many of his students have earned scholarships and pursued STEM careers. Recently, he led the effort in creating the Innovation Station, a mobile classroom equipped with 3D printers, laser cutters and other tools aimed to make STEM resources accessible to students and teachers at different schools across the Oʻahu. Silver has been awarded the prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, the Albert Einstein Educator Fellowship Award, and a NASA Fellowship Activity award.

Silver will represent Hawaiʻi in the National Teacher of the Year program next Spring.