FM9 Geography Teacher Tim Fails Named 2026 Texas Secondary Teacher of the Year

If your ninth-grader has ever come home talking about maps, cultures, or why the world works the way it does, there's a real chance Tim Fails had something to do with it.

Timothy Fails, a geography teacher at Flower Mound 9th Grade Campus, has taken home the top honor a secondary classroom teacher can earn in Texas — the 2026 Texas Secondary Teacher of the Year award, presented by the Texas Association of School Administrators. Not just in Denton County. Not just in LISD — statewide.

The road there was long. Fails first worked through the LISD Secondary Teacher of the Year process, then represented the district among 76 schools across Region 11 as Region 11 Secondary Teacher of the Year. From that regional pool, a panel of judges drawn from education, business, and community sectors across Texas selected just three secondary finalists for in-depth interviews. Fails came out on top.

He has taught geography at FM9 and built a classroom philosophy centered on something genuinely hard to teach: curiosity about the world. His students explore the relationship between people and the planet and develop the critical thinking skills to analyze what they find.

Fails received the award at a state-level ceremony on October 17, 2025. The Texas Teacher of the Year program has recognized classroom excellence since 1969 and has been run by TASA since 2011.

If your kid is in his class right now, their geography teacher just beat out every secondary educator in Texas.