A Central Falls Special Education Teacher Thought She Was Cooking for State Officials, Then Learned the Surprise Was a $25,000 Milken Award for Her

Briana Jones believed she was helping her students cook and serve food for visiting state education officials at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island. The gathering was actually for her. Jones, a special education and culinary teacher, was surprised with a $25,000 Milken Educator Award, the first presented anywhere in the country for the 2026-27 school year, NBC 10 News reported.

She had been catering and keeping an eye on her students when she realized the event was about her. Jones told NBC 10 she was in “utter shock” the moment she heard her name.

How the Surprise Unfolded at Central Falls High School

The announcement came on Oct. 21, 2026. Students, teachers, local dignitaries and media gathered for what most believed was an assembly with Rhode Island Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green, according to the Milken Educator Awards announcement.

Dr. Jane Foley, senior vice president of the Milken Educator Awards and a 1994 recipient herself, joined the commissioner on stage and called out Jones’s name. Foley said Jones’s commitment to her students “is changing lives in Central Falls.”

Jones is the first Milken Educator in the history of the Central Falls School District and the only Rhode Island recipient this year. She is also Rhode Island’s 86th honoree since the state joined the program in 1990.

A Classroom Built Around Life After Graduation

Jones has taught for 15 years. She works with students ages 18 to 22 in the school’s transition program, which prepares them for life after graduation.

She recently took on a leadership role in the school’s culinary career and technical education program. That program runs a school café where students practice job skills along with communication, money management and other everyday skills. Jones told NBC 10 the café is meant to build skills that help students get hired.

The Milken announcement also credits her with launching the culinary program’s food truck, “The Taste of Central Falls,” despite having no prior experience driving a truck or running a kitchen. Students on the truck learn order-taking, meal prep, finance and food safety. Jones expanded it so that both general and special education students take part.

The Central Falls truck was part of the Rhode Island Department of Education’s Menu for Success food truck initiative, which now includes 16 school districts. The Central Falls truck held its ribbon cutting on Aug. 3, 2023.

Beyond the kitchen, Jones trains parents as paid job coaches for students, volunteers with Unified Sports and Special Olympics, and teaches as an adjunct professor at the University of Rhode Island.

What Briana Jones Plans to Do With the $25,000

At first, Jones assumed the prize money would go back to the school, and she was excited about that for her students. Once she learned the award was hers personally, she said she would spend some of it, with most going to her students.

The cash prize is unrestricted, so recipients decide how to use it. Past honorees have put the money toward their own education, field trips, scholarships and even adoption, according to Milken.

Jones credited the people around her, describing Central Falls as the village that helps her students succeed, WPRI 12 reported. She launched the food truck in 2023, and it became the first in what grew into the statewide program.

Why the Milken Educator Award Is So Rare

The award is often described as the Oscars of teaching. The 2026-27 tour will honor up to 30 educators nationwide, out of roughly 3.7 million teachers, according to NBC 10.

Teachers cannot apply, and no one can nominate them. Honorees are chosen in early to mid-career for their teaching, leadership and family and community engagement, as well as their promise for the future. This year marks the program’s 40th anniversary, and more than $76 million in individual prizes has been awarded since 1987, the foundation said in its anniversary announcement.

Recipients also join a network of more than 3,000 Milken Educators and attend an all-expenses-paid forum in Washington, D.C., June 4-6, 2027.

A Trenton Teacher Was Surprised the Next Day

The tour moved quickly. On Oct. 22, Katherine Delvaux, a first-grade English as a second language teacher at Carroll Robbins Elementary School in Trenton, New Jersey, received her own surprise at a schoolwide assembly, according to the Milken Educator Awards.

The New Jersey Department of Education notes that Delvaux has 11 years in education and that 57 percent of the multilingual learners she serves increased their language proficiency levels.

More surprise assemblies are expected at schools around the country through the school year.

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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.

Image: John Phelan – CC BY-SA 3.0/Wikimedia Commons