Trump not expected to attend National Teacher of the Year award ceremony

President Trump is expected to skip the award ceremony honoring this year’s National Teacher of the Year, passing on an event that dates back decades.

Nancy Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), told The Hill on Friday that the council’s understanding is that Trump won’t be in attendance.

The event will be hosted on the White House grounds and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will present the award on Monday, Rodriquez said.{mosads}

The CCSSO, which organizes the program, said U.S. presidents have often given out the award since it started under President Harry Truman in 1952. 

While it has become custom for the president to present the award, Paul Ferrari, the senior program director for National Teacher of the Year, said that different administrations have made their own decisions on how to recognize teachers.

“Each year, CCSSO works with the White House to coordinate a recognition event. It is up to each administration to decide how to recognize the teachers, and it has varied throughout the 67-year history of the program in location and who has delivered the recognition to the National Teacher,” Ferrari said. 

The White House did not immediately return The Hill’s request for comment on Friday evening. 

Rodney Robinson, a social studies teacher at a juvenile detention center in Richmond, Va., was named the National Teacher of the Year for 2019.

Trump presented the honor to Mandy Manning last year, an educator known for teaching immigrant and refugee students.

During the ceremony, Manning wrote political badges on her black dress and declined to clap for the president when he entered the room.

Her pins included the Women’s March poster, one that read “Trans Equality Now” and another shared like an apple with a rainbow.

Manning also said that she and Trump met separately and that she personally delivered the president hand-written letters from her students, explaining who the letters were from.

The CCSSO told Politico that it is aware of at least nine other occasions when someone else — such as the vice president or first lady — went in the president’s place to hand out the award.