By Steve Brawner, © 2025 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

How does a public school reinforce character traits like humility and integrity without wading into the culture wars or crossing into parental territory? The Cross County Elementary Technology Academy may have figured it out.

Located about 45 minutes south of Jonesboro, CCETA weaves seven such values into its daily learning activities. 

“The way we think of it is, character education is not something else on your teacher’s plate,” said Kathryn Pruiett, the school district’s character education master teacher. “It is the plate that everything else rests on.”

Superintendent Dr. Nathan Morris decided years ago that the school district needed to be more intentional about teaching character along with academics. A committee started determining what that would look like at the elementary school. The school surveyed teachers and parents about the values the community wanted to instill. 

The results, first incorporated in 2022-23, were the school’s initial six “creatures of character” – each familiar to eastern Arkansas students, and each tied to a particular trait. The acorn-gathering squirrel represents self-discipline. The hog represents compassion because research shows it can empathize. Courage is represented by the specklebelly goose because it bravely overcomes obstacles as it annually journeys south for the winter. The white-tailed deer represents respect because it honors the territory marked by its fellow deer. For gratitude, educators chose the largemouth bass because it eagerly accepts food tossed in its direction. The turkey represents integrity. It has nothing to hide as it fans its tail feathers. 

The district reinforces those qualities throughout the school day. Posters featuring the creatures hang in hallways and classrooms. Teachers tie the values into lessons and highlight when a historical or fictional character displays one. Counselor Carly Owens provides 40 minutes of character-based lessons in each classroom every two weeks. Teachers praise a student for displaying a trait. Students nominate peers for recognition. Names go into a bingo wheel and are drawn for prizes.  

Principal Jessica Stacy said students showed significant growth in those six qualities the first year but were placing too much of an emphasis on being recognized. In response, the school added a seventh quality – humility, as represented by the honeybee, which does whatever work is needed by the hive. Educators have created a motto for each trait. Its motto is, “Humility isn’t thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.”

The humble honeybee, in fact, is the focus for August. Educators call humility the “glue.”

“We start with that one … on purpose because it’s the foundation for everything else,” Stacy said.

It might be good for CCETA to focus on humility, because the school is getting a lot of attention these days. Earlier this year, T4 Education selected it as one of 50 worldwide finalists – and one of only two in the United States – for its prestigious World’s Best School Prizes. CCETA is one of the 10 finalists in the “Overcoming Adversity” category. Its application emphasized its challenges as a rural, far-flung district with many low-income students. The district will learn whether it won in October.

Is the creatures of character program succeeding? Morris said student behavior issues have been dropping. Pruiett, who previously taught kindergarten before guiding the effort as character education master teacher, said she saw it working firsthand. 

“That was what was mind-blowing to me because my five-year-old students were talking about words like integrity and humility,” she said. “It wasn’t just that they were saying them. It was that they were identifying them in our book characters. They were identifying them in their peers in things that those around them were doing. … It was invigorating as an educator to see that because it’s just not normal. I had my own son, personally, would come home taking about these things.”

Educators I interviewed say all the school’s teachers have embraced the creatures of character effort. They obviously are OK with it because they aren’t looking for other jobs. The school has a 96% teacher retention rate. 

Owens, the school counselor, said the district’s move into character education hasn’t led to conflict in the community, either.

“I don’t know any parent who wouldn’t want any of their kids to have any of these core values, regardless of whatever your background is,” she said. “I think everybody agrees that these are things that we want our kids and all of us to grow in. No, there’s not been any of that, and I’m thankful because it’s just been something that’s been beautifully embraced by everybody, and it’s just become a really fun part of who we are.”