Oak Harbor High School teacher Darren McCoy may be heading to the Grammy Awards.

It’s far from a done deal, but his students are already asking if he can chat up Katy Perry.

The choir director is a quarterfinalist for the Music Educator Award, given to the top music educators in the country and awarded at the Special Merit Awards Ceremony during Grammy Week.

The winner gets to attend the Grammy Awards and receives a $10,000 check as well as $10,000 for his or her school. Nine other finalists take home $1,000 and a matching grant for their schools.

The judges are searching for a teacher who inspires students and uses innovative teaching techniques.

By all accounts, McCoy is a maestro at both.

This is his seventh year at Oak Harbor High, and in that time he’s energized the school’s music program.

“Very few of his students will go on to a professional singing career,” said Oak Harbor High School Principal Dwight Lundstrom. “For many kids, his class is a safe place to be and a happy period in their day.”

The choir director’s accomplishments include getting more boys involved in choir, an activity that tends to draw more girls.

He started Man Choir — a title apparently more manly than “men’s choir.”

He gets boys hooked on choir, and, pretty soon, they’re sight reading music and singing for Harbor Singers, a high-level choir at the high school, Lundstrom said.

McCoy helped bring a part-time accompanist to both middle schools and the high school. He applied for a grant that allowed all the district’s music teachers to have access to notation software and workshops on how to use it.

McCoy sings and is also an accomplished pianist who writes his own music.

His classes are popular because McCoy brings professional passion and energy to every class he teaches, the principal said.

“The main thing that gets kids in his classes are the respect and care he has for kids,” Lundstrom said. “They adore him and love working with him.”

Lundstrom has watched kids walk into McCoy’s classroom and immediately begin to sing as they gather up materials for class.

McCoy said he loves music because it allows people — whatever their backgrounds — to connect. He sees it on a global scale and  in his classroom. Kids who would never talk to each other do inside the choir room.

His teaching philosophy is to put his students first.

“I think there’s this phrase, ‘Nobody cares what you know until they know you care,’” he said. “To be a good teacher, your students need to trust you.”

Semifinalists will be announced in September.