​Brooklyn Park Middle School Educator Named Teacher Of The Year

ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, MD — Brooklyn Park Middle School language arts teacher Emily Davis has been named the 2019-2020 Anne Arundel County Public Schools Teacher of the Year. Superintendent George Arlotto surprised the teaching staff with the announcement during what they thought was a virtual staff meeting Tuesday. The announcement would have taken place at the 34th annual Excellence in Education Awards dinner, but that event was canceled due to the new coronavirus pandemic.

“First and foremost, for me this is about being a voice for my students, for my school, and for other teachers in Anne Arundel County,” said Davis, who has spent six years sharing her passion for reading through arts integration strategies. “I am committed to supporting the furthering of equity professional development, to filling in those gaps that exist for a lot of our students, and to representing the amazing teachers that we have in this county.”

Davis is the seventh middle school teacher to win the award since its inception during the 1986-1987 school year. She now will compete for Maryland State Teacher of the Year. That winner will be announced next fall.

AACPS has had two of the last three Maryland Teacher of the Year winners, Teresa Beilstein of South Shore Elementary School (2020) and Josh Carroll of South River High School (2018). AACPS Teachers of the Year have also been finalists for Maryland Teacher of the Year in each of the last five years and in seven of the last nine years.

Fifty-five educators from public and private schools were recognized during in year’s Excellence in Education program. Other finalists for this year’s Anne Arundel County Public Schools Teacher of the Year honor were:

• Lindsay Breach, a fourth-grade teacher at Glendale Elementary School
• Mollie Dwyer, a special education teacher at Waugh Chapel Elementary School
• Tema Encarnacion, an English Language Acquisition teacher at Annapolis High School
• David Fawley, a marine service technology teacher at the Center of Applied Technology South
• Hope Turner, a language arts teacher at Marley Middle School