LifeChanger of the Year Nominee Profile

Maria Perez-Chun was nominated by her colleague, Ernesto Garcia.

Ms. Perez-Chun goes above and beyond to help her students.  She connects well with them and finds inspiring ways to get them to believe in themselves.

"We work in a Title I school, in a community where there's gang activity, elevated crime, and rampant poverty," said Garcia. "Yet, because of teachers like Mrs. Perez-Chun, we are not only graduating a large percentage of our students, we are also getting them into all sorts of colleges, from the local community colleges, to Harvard and other Ivy League universities.  She makes Century High School a much better place to work at and she has been the Teacher of the Year in the past.  Our values are Commitment, Honor, and Success, and she not only displays them, but she gets the students to practice them as well.  This will help students for a lifetime."