Courtney Worthen was happy enough earning the Bryant School District Teacher of the Year award. but it’s what came after the award that meant the most to her.
“My favorite part of winning the award was reconnecting with former students,” Worthen said. “I had families that congratulated me on Facebook or emailed me. I got emails from four of five kids that I would not have expected. I wouldn’t have expected them to contact me at all. I also had a kiddo who brought me a Dr. Pepper and just wanted to say ‘hi.’ Reconnecting with those kids and families and seeing I may have had a little impact on them meant a lot to me.”
Worthen, a fourth-grade teacher at Springhill Elementary School in Bryant, just completed her 10th year teaching in the district and her 16th year overall. At Springhill, she is well-known by teachers, staff and students of all grades, as she manages The Leader in Me program that encompasses the entire school. Her interactions far exceed just her classroom or the students she team-teaches.
“I do a really good job of speaking to all families and being welcoming to anyone who comes in the door,” she said. “I work with any grade level, not just my fourth-grade team. I am really visible, and I take care of my babies in the classroom.”
Worthen grew up in Nashville, the small southwestern Arkansas town known for its dominant Scrapper varsity football team. Her late father owned a radio station, and her mother was a longtime ninth-grade civics teacher at Nashville High School.
“I grew up knowing what education is all about, and being in a small community such as Nashville, we would walk into Walmart, and three or four students would catch a hold of my mom,” Worthen said. “I knew it was more than just going into a classroom and opening up a textbook. I think that is why education came to mind so quickly.”
But as Worthen enjoyed her senior year cheering for the 1996 Scrapper state-championship football team, she had decided she wasn’t going to be a teacher. In fall 1997, she enrolled at the University of Arkansas, intent on majoring in architecture.
“I always enjoyed being around kids, but the original plan was not to be a teacher,” she said. “I knew for certain if I was going to do anything with kids, it wasn’t going to be hormonal teenagers in junior high. It would probably be younger kids.”
Worthen’s plans changed as she completed her third semester at Arkansas. Computer drafting classes weren’t available to her in high school, and she knew completing the architecture major was going to be a struggle.
“I realized [architecture] isn’t for me but thought elementary teaching may be interesting,” Worthen said. “It almost sounded too easy, so it was an easy switch-over.”
She completed her degree, and during the summer of 2001 was finishing summer classes. Her now-husband, Jeff, whom she had met before classes started their first year at Arkansas, had landed a job at Dassault Falcon Jet in Little Rock , which is close to White Hall, where he grew up, and not too far from Nashville.
Worthen decided to follow him, but she had to find a school district willing to hire her contingent on her completing her nontraditional teaching licensure. At that time, the university required education students to earn a master’s degree to qualify to student-teach. Worthen didn’t want to do that, so she enrolled in the nontraditional program.
The program gained in popularity a few years later, but at that time, schools were leery of it. She finally landed a job at the Little Rock School District’s Badgett Elementary School, teaching fourth grade. The school, which closed after the 2001-02 school year, was near the Sweet Home community, and many of its students were underprivileged. It was an eye-opening experience for the rookie, but even then, she had the wherewithal to make suggestions for a more ideal learning environment.
“I was the only fourth-grade teacher, with 32 students in a trailer,” she said. “After six weeks, I knew that wasn’t fair, so I suggested we split the third- and fourth-graders up, and I took some of the more advanced third-graders, and they hired a new teacher. Those kids made a big impact on me.”
The 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred just a month into her teaching stint, and a short time later, her dad died. It was a tough year, but things got better when she was transferred to Fulbright Elementary School in west Little Rock.
“I loved that school,” she said. “I think that was the first school that taught me about family among the staff. I learned a lot about education and kids at Badgett, but I learned about being part of the staff and feeding off of one another at Fulbright.”
She spent four years teaching first grade there and also completed her master’s degree in curriculum design.
She moved on to the LRSD’s Jefferson Elementary School and worked as an instructional coach and also served as a liaison with the parent-teacher organization.
In 2007, Worthen’s grandparents, whose family roots go deep into Bryant history, were in bad health. She wanted to be closer to them, so she applied for a job in Bryant. Her options were to teach the Gifted and Talented Program at Bryant Elementary School or teach fourth grade at Springhill. After graduate school, Worthen was in no hurry to earn more certification, so she took the Springhill job.
It didn’t take her long to mesh with the close-knit staff.
“I love how we are all a family,” she said. “I can tell you things that are going on with our kindergarten teachers. I can tell you the things that are going on with our paraprofessionals. We really do take care of one another. We have had illnesses and family tragedy within the staff and the student population, but we just take care of one another. Even during the rough times, teachers will say, ‘I am quitting, I am done.’ But when it is all said and done, we want to walk into our classrooms the next morning.”
Worthen’s experience working closely with teachers and parents of all grades in different positions has prompted her to be accessible at Springhill. She gets to know some kids before they even enter the fourth grade and is happy to be an ambassador for the school.
For the past four years, she has team-taught fourth grade and specializes in social studies, science and math. She generally sees more than 50 students per day.
As her 10th year at Springhill wound down in May, she sensed something special was happening. There was an announcement that a special assembly was going to be held outside the school later that week. The day before, another teacher wondered if it would be to announce the Teacher of the Year.
Sure enough, Bryant’s retiring superintendent, Tom Kimbrell, was at the school, and Worthen’s husband, who had left the house early that day to get to the school before his wife and conceal his truck, appeared. Those who were gathered greeted Worthen warmly.
“To be around the kids and have them see the teachers are working hard and being rewarded for it — the recognition was a big thing,” Worthen said. “I had fifth-graders I had the year before come talk to me, and I had younger ones who may have been siblings of students I taught talk to me. I have seen them in the hallways, and all they may know is I am a teacher at Spring Hill; that was neat to see they were that supportive. It was great.”
As she sat in U.S. Pizza in Bryant recounting that special day, she was happy for a summer break but excited about meeting new students in August. She said she is content with staying at Springhill and has no aspirations to move to administration, although she hasn’t ruled out taking on a specialist role. No matter what happens, Worthen is glad she decided on a career in education.
“I don’t know what my life would be like,” Worthen said. “I don’t want to imagine that. I am so happy teaching.”