Sandburg Band Teacher Will Compete in Jeopardy! Teachers Tournament in L.A.

Ricardo Vazquez, a band teacher at Sandburg Middle School in Elmhurst, will head to Los Angeles next week to compete in the fourth edition of the Jeopardy! Teachers Tournament.

The two-week event, which will air Nov. 11-22, will feature kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers from all over North America who will battle it out for a $100,000 grand prize and a berth in the Tournament of Champions.

“Teachers Tournament contestants spend their days nurturing and shaping young minds, so some viewers may be surprised when they come on our show and they’re just as aggressive and competitive as the rest of our contestants,” Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek said in a prepared statement. “Last year, the winner of the Teachers Tournament went on to win the Tournament of Champions; will this year’s winner enjoy the same success?”

Vazquez joins 14 other teachers, from Massachusetts, Michigan, Maryland, Texas, North Carolina, New York, Georgia, Alaska, Ohio, Nebraska, South Carolina and even Canada.

The teachers qualified to appear on Jeopardy! by passing a 50-question test online. They then were invited to attend regional, in-person auditions consisting of another 50-question test, an interview and mock game play.

Vazquez is not the first District 205 teacher to make it on the show. Bryan Middle School teacher Andrew Fuller shared the stage with Alex Trebek back in 2011. Read more about that here:

• This is 'Jeopardy!'
• Secret's Out: Bryan Seventh-grade Teacher Andrew Fuller Takes Second Place in Jeopardy!

Jeopardy! airs at 2:30 p.m. on WLS-TV.