It’s not like she didn’t have a choice of careers, but Amy Jordan started riding a school bus to basketball games when she was 6 months old and later used her mother’s old gradebooks to play school.
As a daughter of two educators, the role of teacher was the only one Jordan wanted, except “for a minute” at Hendrix College in Conway when she was pre-med.
“I think my skill set was better matched to another profession,” she said, laughing. “I loved to read and write.” She majored in English at Hendrix and went to the
University of Central Arkansas in Conway to get a master’s degree in school leadership and administration.
Jordan, 44, just finished her first year as principal of Bob and Betty Courtway Middle School in Conway, which she said was a seamless transition after seven years as the assistant to then-Principal Karen Lasker.
“There weren’t any surprises for me,” Jordan said, giving credit to Lasker. “Dr. Lasker was phenomenal to work for because everything she did, she let me do as well. I knew the staff; I knew the students; I knew the system.”
Jordan grew up in Vilonia, where her parents, Sunnie and Charles Ruple, both taught in the Vilonia School District for a while. Jordan recalled gathering her two brothers to play school and taking roll using her mother’s old gradebook.
Her mother later took a job at the state Department of Education and now works part time for a software company and runs her own trophy business; Jordan’s father was a girls basketball coach in Vilonia and retired last year as a coach in the Cabot School District.
Jordan’s teaching experience started at Mount Vernon-Enola, where for five years she taught English to grades seven through 12 and was in charge of the yearbook and the school newspaper.
Her next job was teaching eighth- and 10th-grade English for three years in the Greenbrier School District.
“I really loved the eighth-grade age; I really did,” she said. “They seemed a little more energetic about school. Tenth-graders can drive and have a lot of extracurricular activities. That’s when I realized I liked that middle level.”
She became an assistant principal at Fuller Middle School in Pulaski County, where she had to handle transportation and desegregation paperwork, in addition to other duties.
“When I left, they replaced me with two people,” she said matter-of-factly.
Jordan came to the Conway School District in a position that ranks near the top of her favorites: literacy coach at Ruth Doyle Intermediate School.
“It was unlike anything I’d ever done,” she said. Jordan worked with struggling students, as well as teachers in all subject areas to show them strategies to teach those children.
It was a “big-picture” role, working with the entire faculty. “It was a little bit like leadership, but it was like a learning ground,” she said.
She landed a job as assistant principal at what was then Bob Courtway Middle School, which her two sons attended.
Jordan was serving as assistant principal when the school district reorganized, and the middle school went from seventh and eighth grades to fifth, sixth and seventh grades.
“That was our year that was just like fruit-basket turnover,” she said of the staff.
Jordan said school-district officials, including Superintendent Greg Murry and K.K. Bradshaw, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, helped make the transition a smooth one, too.
“We have a true passion for growing leaders who are going to try to make our district the best it can be,” she said. “That’s not true of every district.”
Lasker, asked to describe what Jordan brings to the position, said, “This is probably the easiest question I’ve ever had.”
“She’s very coachable, a very bright young lady. So it’s very easy when you have someone who has the capacity she has to just bring them along with you. … You teach them what you learn,” Lasker said. “She’s very energetic, very creative — has a very creative mind.”
Lasker said Jordan brought work and fun together to make the job enjoyable.
“She’s a kid at heart,” Lasker said. “She’s a team player, and we just meshed. My strengths were her weaknesses; her strengths were my weaknesses. We made a bond, a pact, that we’d stay [at the middle school] until we got the job done, no matter how many hours it took. I would put everything on the line for Amy Jordan. She’s the daughter you never had.
“She actually listened and wanted to learn. She was an easy, easy mentee. I’ve had many in the past, and she was one of my top. She was a joy.”
Jordan said her role as principal is to “make the environment not difficult because the work is hard enough. Teaching is hard work,” she said, punctuating each word.
“So for the parent or teacher or kid who has to come here, I want them to want to be here,” she said. “I try to make our school as inviting as possible.”
To help alleviate teacher burnout, Jordan said, she does “some really simple things.”
Jordan randomly allows teachers to wear jeans: “We’ll say, ‘It’s going to be raining and 35 degrees; let’s wear jeans.’”
She also has what she calls “happy carts” that are taken to classrooms to give teachers a snack once in a while, “a little pick-me-up.”
For the students, “I hope we make it feel like home for them. The lights are always on. The heat is always on, and the food’s always hot.”
The school has 65 percent of its students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.
One of her dreams is to have a closet of caring to provide food and more for students in need. Another goal is to place more of an emphasis on reading and writing across all content areas.
“We love on them and motivate them and let them know the key to their success is their education,” she said.
That’s one reason she is so passionate about Conway Cradle Care, a nonprofit organization that provides day care for high school parents in Faulkner County. She has been a board member for the organization for five years and, in June, will move from vice chairwoman to chairwoman.
Former state Rep. Linda Tyler, D-Conway, recommended Jordan for the position. Tyler said she has been a donor and supporter of Conway Cradle Care and was asked to recruit someone for the board.
“I got to know [Jordan] more when she wanted to know more about me as a legislator. I tried to recruit her to run for office,” Tyler said. “She’s just so out there with her personality, and you can tell she cares so much about the things she commits to.”
Conway Cradle Care is housed at First Presbyterian Church, adjacent to Conway High School.
“We have after-school tutoring, mentoring and cooking classes. We’re trying to run the gamut on everything they need to be a parent,” Jordan said. “The whole purpose is to keep those kids in school and on track.”
The organization provides mentoring to teenage parents in Faulkner and Perry counties.
Another reason Jordan relates to the organization is that she was a teenage mother, too. She was 19 when she had her first son. She and Keith, who was a UCA student, married during her freshman year at Hendrix. She was a sophomore when she had Spencer.
“It’s terrifying,” Jordan said. “I considered dropping out of school completely. I considered switching to somewhere easier. I’m also very tenacious; some would say stubborn.” So she persevered.
Her husband worked at Acxiom then, which he still does. Jordan worked 20 hours a week in the Hendrix College Financial Aid Office, which is the only other job besides teaching she’s ever had.
“It was just terrifying, and it made me realize if I was going to get out of college, I was going to have to do everything I could …, she said. “I knew, because my parents were educators, that education was the key.”
A long-term goal the board has for Conway Cradle Care is to consider expanding the day care for those high school students when they go to college.
The organization is primarily a United Way agency, but it hosts fundraisers to help support its programs. A fashion show was held for years but was not generating the interest needed among females, much less males, Jordan said.
A new fundraiser was introduced this year. On Saturday, the first Rockin’ the Cradle 5K/1K fun run/walk will start at 9 a.m. in the west parking lot of Conway High School. The entry fee is $25, and registration is available at cradlecare.org.
“I will help with the 5K, even when I roll off [the board], because I was one of the ones who said, ‘Let’s try it,’” she said.
Although Jordan is not a runner, she is active. She’s a Zumba instructor and an Aqua Zumba instructor at Conway Regional Health and Fitness Center. Yes, Zumba — the dance class — in the water.
“It’s so fun,” she said, adding that her mother comes to almost every class Jordan teaches.
As much as Jordan loves her job, she said, the “running gag” is that she has about 12 careers she wants to try after she retires.
Her interests run the gamut, from landscaping to policy-making.
“Some day I might run for office,” she said, envisioning herself as a state representative. “I may start with the City Council.
“I don’t like politics; I like good policy-making,” she said, because legislation affects education. “I’ve always dreamed big, but I act local.”
Jordan said she’d also enjoy selling real estate, like her best friend does, or being a full-time fitness instructor. Yardwork is one of her hobbies, and she loves the idea of putting in her earphones, climbing on a riding lawnmower and just going.
Oh, and she wants to write a book someday. Fiction or nonfiction?
“Both!” she said. “I’ll write a professional-development book. I’ll do that right after I quit being a teacher.”
She said she’ll probably give education another 20 years, though.
“I think I’ll stay as I long as I feel like I can make a difference to students and teachers,” Jordan said.
And all those other ambitions?
“I would hope I’d have all that energy, but I think the real thing I’ll do — because I’m always a pie-in-the sky girl — is do this job as long as they’ll have me, then retire and read and travel — and maybe teach some Zumba here and there.”
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.