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In her tenure as an administrator, Benita Lawrence has led the schools she’s served to improve test scores. Last year, Monticello-Brown Summit Elementary, where she’s been principal the past six years, met Adequate Yearly Progress and had high growth.

Lawrence and two other local educators received statewide recognition recently for their hard work and accomplishments.

Lawrence was honored as the 2009 North Carolina Association of Educators Principal of the Year, and Martha Snavely, the Guilford County School District’s executive director of induction and professional development , received the 2009 NCAE Central Office Administrator of the Year Award.

Lena Murrill-Chapman , a media/technology specialist at Hairston Middle School, received the 2009 NCAE Student Services Division Outstanding Leadership Award.

A veteran educator, Lawrence served as principal of Gibsonville Elementary and was an assistant principal at Summerfield Elementary and Western Rockingham Middle School before going to Monticello-Brown Summit.

She has a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and a master’s degree and educational doctorate from UNCG. A licensed supervision and curriculum specialist, Lawrence has been actively involved with the NCAE and Guilford County Association of Educators for a number of years.

She has lobbied the Legislature on several occasions and served as state secretary, vice president and president of the NCAE’s Principal and Administrator Division .

“I was pleased and humbled to be selected from among some of the finest educators in our state,” Lawrence said. “It affirmed my belief that educators need to lead from both inside and outside the school house to bring about reforms to improve our service to children.”

Lawrence said she believes the collaboration between staff, leadership and parents is what makes Monticello-Brown Summit a special school.

“We have a 'can-do’ attitude and remain open to new ideas and best practices,” Lawrence said. “This award acknowledges how well we work together as a team to best serve children.”

An education advocate for almost 30 years, Snavely works to provide training and support to first-year principals and works with leadership development with assistant principals.

She also supports coaches who mentor first-year teachers, and she oversees professional development for the school district.

“The job of being a new teacher or principal encompasses much more than what they learn in school,” Snavely said. “We’re totally there for support in a nonthreatening way; we give constructive feedback they sometimes don’t want to hear but they need so they can grow as a professional.”

Snavely sees the award as validation for what her whole team is doing.

Murrill-Chapman prepares students for computer competency tests and helps teachers integrate technology in regular classrooms.

In 2007 , she sought grant money to fund rebuilding computers for every Hairston seventh grader who did not have one at home. Seventh graders also received computers this year.

“Our goal is to do whatever we can for the children,” Murrill-Chapman said.

Programs and software are added to the computerss, and parents are offered computer training.

“We stress that the computer is for the whole family, not just the child,” she said.

In addition, teachers who did not have a computer at home received a rebuilt one.

“We want everyone on the same playing ground,” Murrill-Chapman said. “We want to teach our children how to find the information they need so they can turn it into knowledge and wisdom.”

Contact Jennifer Atkins Brown at 574-5582 or jennifer.brown@news-record.com