The email came years after the student had left Elvisa Whitworth’s classroom.

The former student had graduated from high school, gone through a radiology program and bought her own condominium. She was building an adult life, but she still remembered how it felt to be in Whitworth’s class.

For the Holiday Hill Elementary School teacher, that connection was remarkable.

Every year, Whitworth said, a former student reaches out to share an update. Those messages offer a glimpse of the lives students build long after their time with her ends.

Now in her 18th year with Duval County Public Schools, Whitworth teaches fifth grade. She spent six years teaching middle school before joining Holiday Hill, where she is in her 12th year.

Her approach makes room for different ways of participating. Some children readily speak in class. Others hesitate. Whitworth works to help them feel comfortable and recognizes that students can learn through listening and observing their classmates, even when they are not ready to contribute aloud.

The relationships she builds are meant to remain a source of support.

“They know that I’m always here if they need help, if they want to talk,” Whitworth said.

Her own path required adapting to unfamiliar places. After fleeing war in the former Yugoslavia, she lived in Germany, where she learned the language and entered regular classes. Friends, work and education helped her begin to feel more settled.

She moved to Jacksonville in 2000. Today, as both a teacher and the mother of a college student, she wants children to have opportunities to pursue their interests and build their futures.

Whitworth describes herself as an “eternal optimist,” an outlook grounded in taking each day as it comes.

“I take things one day at a time, and I try to do the best I can in that moment,” she said.

That outlook also leaves room for her own growth. Across the two Duval schools where she has worked, Whitworth said, colleagues have encouraged her to keep learning and improving for her students.

When she talks with students about careers, she encourages them to pay attention to their interests and consider what they would enjoy doing. Her own experience gives her a place to start that conversation: She enjoys coming to work and being around her colleagues.

The emails from former students offer another reason to keep going. They show her what comes after the lessons, classroom conversations and daily encouragement—and that students sometimes carry those experiences with them for years.

To explore teaching opportunities with Duval County Public Schools, visit jobs.duvalschools.org.