Maris named LR district’s top teacher

Mary Elizabeth “Beth” Maris, an Advanced Placement and pre-Advanced Placement chemistry teacher at Little Rock Central High School for 18 years, is the Little Rock School District’s 2017 Teacher of the Year/Dr. Marian G. Lacey Educator of the Year.

The award was announced during the district’s annual Crystal Awards gala earlier this month.

Maris will now participate in the competition for Arkansas Teacher of the Year honors later this year.

A graduate of Little Rock’s Hall High, Maris earned a bachelor’s degree in math from Hendrix College, a master’s degree in bio-mathematics from North Carolina State University in Raleigh and a doctorate in interdisciplinary toxicology from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

Maris said in an interview that she did not originally intend to teach but realized after teaching a college night course that she enjoyed teaching more than doing laboratory research.

Maris and her husband, Mahlon, have two sons: Jacob, who attends the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and Gage, who attends Central High.

At the Crystal Awards ceremony, nearly 70 teachers — one or more representatives from each of the district’s schools — were honored. Those included overall winners for the elementary, middle school and high school levels.

Level winners were Nancy Downing, who will retire after this school year from Roberts Elementary; Chanda Freeman from Forest Heights STEM Academy; and Chandle Carpenter from Parkview High.