Darlene Williams may be the most experienced new teacher in the district. When she was hired as a brand new kindergarten teacher at Tillery Elementary School, she had already been at the school for 13 years as an instructional assistant.
When she went to college the first time, she earned a degree in home economics. She planned a career as a home economist working for one of the utility companies, but those jobs vanished about the time she finished school.
She put her home economics training to work as a stay-athome mom while her husband embarked on a career as a teacher and coach. About the time her youngest child started school, she got a call from another teacher who needed an instructional assistant for a junior high school math class.
Williams moved from junior high to preschool and then to Tillery, where she worked with mostly second and third graders.
At first she was attracted by the school schedule. She liked working the same schedule as her children, but then she realized she had fallen in love with the children she worked with. So she started taking a few classes at the community college and then at University of Arkansas and Harding University.
"I worked under a lot of good teachers," she said. "I saw the things that worked, so I use them. I was blessed."
Last year she was ready to start teaching using guidelines of the nontraditional licensing program. She wanted to teach first
The retiring teacher offered to leave many of her personal teaching supplies behind. It's expensive to set up a classroom, Williams said, although the district supplies math manipulatives and "big books"and parents buy their children's supplies. Teachers collect many of the items that go into the learning centers. Williams won't have her teaching license for another two years. By then her youngest child may be catching up to her. He's studying education at U of A. She also has two daughters and a new grandchild. When she's not at school, she spends her time with the new baby or at church. Her hobby is scrapbooking. Her husband, Tom Williams, is a basketball coach at Rogers Heritage High School. "We were Mounties forever," Darlene Williams said," but we're adjusting. "She's purging her closet of Mountie blue, replacing it by buying navy blue and orange.
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