Debby Hartsell began her 50th year of teaching at Chico ISD Wednesday morning. She teaches special education at the middle school campus. AUSTIN JACKSON | WCMESSENGER
Debby Hartsell remembers her first day of teaching like it was yesterday.
It was 1975. The 20-something in a dress, hose and dress shoes with heels, was about as excited as the kids streaming into her classroom.
“I remember thinking, ‘This is it. This is what I want to do,’” Hartsell said. “The kids came in all bright-eyed — and so was I. When I got my first paycheck, I showed it to my mom and said, ‘Can you believe they’re paying me to do this?’”
It turned out that it was never about the pay for Hartsell, not then and not in 2025. When students returned for the 2025–26 school year at Chico Middle School on Wednesday, Hartsell checked off her 50th year of teaching at Chico ISD.
The special education teacher been teaching longer than many of her peers have been alive. Still, the first-day excitement hasn’t lost its luster.
Chico students started the 2025-26 school year Wednesday, Aug. 6. Pictured is Chico ISD trustee Ubaldo Garcia hugging a loved one outside of the elementary school. AUSTIN JACKSON | WCMESSENGER
Kindergarten students began their first days at Chico Elementary Wednesday as one teacher, Debby Hartsell, began her 50th. AUSTIN JACKSON | WCMESSENGER
First day drop off traffic at Chico Elementary School. AUSTIN JACKSON | WCMESSENGER
Now at the middle school campus, Hartsell said she still feels the rush from the fresh start and the new opportunity to make an impact on a child’s life.
It all started after the former Bridgeport High School graduate was studying at Weatherford College.
“I was just taking my basics, and I saw a flyer asking for volunteers to help tutor upper elementary students who needed some extra help,” Hartsell recalled. “I thought, ‘That sounds like fun.’ I signed up, and hook, line and sinker — I was caught. I’ve been in special education ever since.”
Hartsell went on to graduate from Texas Woman’s University with a degree in special education, earning an elementary certification with a focus on learning disabilities. She sent out three applications that summer, to Decatur, Bridgeport and Chico ISDs.
Chico gave her a shot that year — with an investment that has resulted in invaluable benefits to the district, according to school leaders.
“She is an institutional treasure,” said Randy Brawner, superintendent of Chico ISD. “Throughout those 50 years, she has never lost her passion for students and for teaching.”
In her first years teaching, she and fellow teacher and mentor Paula Buckner worked in an old white house on the Chico Elementary campus. The school was overcrowded at the time, so they used the house, located across the playground from the main building, as a makeshift campus.
Rooms and even closets of the home were morphed into learning stations. One closet was used as a reading area. They decorated and adapted the space creatively, even turning the house into a haunted house for students during Halloween.
“We used that whole house — and during Halloween, we’d turn it into a haunted house,” Hartsell said. “The kids loved it. They’d say, ‘I’m going to the White House,’ and the teachers would send them across the playground to us.”
Today, she can’t imagine teaching in a setup like that.
Over the years, the facilities changed. Enrollment sizes ebbed and flowed. The wardrobe grew more comfortable while freedom to switch gears for a spontaneous project dissipated as state standardized testing grew more rigorous and obstructive.
For the last few years, Chico ISD switched to a four-day instructional format.
Hartsell has seen it all, and throughout her time, she left her mark on generations of Chico ISD students.
She’s taught a mother, a daughter and a granddaughter — all in the same family.
“Three generations,” she said. “It’s always funny when the kids say, ‘My mom had you too!’”
She added that the students always get a kick out of hearing what their mom or dad were like when they were kids.
While the environment, classrooms and public education in general have changed, one thing hasn’t for Hartsell.
“The love of the kids. That’s been constant. The students have changed — there’s more outside influence now — but dedicated teachers are still around. Most of us aren’t in it for the money; it’s always been a passion project.”
Debby Hartsell stands outside her classroom on the first day of school Wednesday, Aug. 6 at Chico Middle School. AUSTIN JACKSON | WCMESSENGER
From the beginning, Hartsell found unique ways to connect with students with learning disabilities or who had just fallen behind in the classroom. Often, she said, students enter her classroom feeling inadequate.
To Hartsell, that’s unacceptable. She knows — with perhaps more experience than any special education specialist in Wise County — that through a little discipline, structure, some tinkering and maybe a fresh approach, the student can find their way to make concepts click.
“When a student says, ‘Ohhh, I get it’ — there’s nothing like that. It’s so exciting. You can see their confidence grow,” she said. “A lot of my students know they are a little different from some of their classmates, and that can be hard on them. When they succeed, it means a lot.”
She’s been chasing the joy of student breakthroughs for 50 years. Each time — each lightbulb moment — leaves the student buzzing with newfound confidence.
“I teach those kids who just need a little extra — a different explanation, a fresh set of eyes,” Hartsell said. “I love helping them get it in a way that made sense to them. Sometimes it’s using mnemonics or other strategies. Just little tools that make a big difference.”
Hartsell has been working on this passion project for the last five decades. And she doesn’t really see herself giving it up anytime soon.
Technically, she retired around 20 years ago. The one-day retirement was just a technicality related to Social Security at the time. She was back to keep her first-day streak at Chico ISD that same fall.
The R word comes up now and again, but the classroom has always called her back.
“I did think about [retiring] earlier this year. But I always come back to this: I love the kids, I love the camaraderie among the teachers,” she said. “Chico is a small district, and I really like that — we all know each other. It’s never been about the money for me. I just love it, and that’s why I keep doing it.”
That passion has made the decades fly by. And to be honest, she said she hasn’t necessarily been keeping track
“Some teachers count down the days to retirement — I never have,” Hartsell said. “I just keep doing what I love.”
Loading Comments