Brian K. Durham, a teacher at Lexington Traditional Magnet School, is a winner of the Edyth May Sliffe Award for Distinguished Junior High School Mathematics Teaching.

Durham, also the LTMS math team coach, is one of only 53 teachers from all of the junior high schools in the United States and Canada chosen for this award, sponsored by the Mathematical Association of America. Only five other Kentuckians have ever earned this award – none since 2003.

Durham received a $100 check; a letter of recognition, pin and certificate, a complimentary one-year membership in the math association, a one-year subscription to Math Horizons Magazine and a one-year membership in the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

This school year will be Durham’s third at LTMS and 11^th in Fayette County Public Schools; he previously taught at Henry Clay High School and Leestown Middle School. He has national board certification in mathematics and has taught primarily at the eighth-grade level, with students studying content from pre-algebra through pre-calculus.

The Sliffe Award goes to the top five schools in each of 10 regions and Canada, based on the total performance of the three top-scoring students of a school in the past three years. The consistent, excellent effort of students at LTMS put their school in that group.

LTMS was the only school in Kentucky to be recognized in the top 1 percent nationally by the American Mathematics Competition; its students placed first in the state at all three grade levels. LTMS, the current MathCounts state champion, also is the only school in the district – and one of only five in the state – to be recognized as a Gold Level School by the MathCounts Club Program.