Elizabeth Hartley, a health science teacher with Bulloch County Schools, was named recently as a national ambassador for health science education, and also as a finalist for Georgia’s top new teacher in career technical education.
In a release, Hayley Greene, director of Public Relations for the school district, announced that the National Consortium for Health Science Education selected Hartley to join its 12-member team of health science teachers. The Consortium is tasked with advancing career and technical education and supporting professional development for health science educators nationwide.

She is one of three Georgians on the team, which includes Callie Davis of Cherokee County and Melissa Culpepper of Colquitt County.
“These are some of the best and brightest in the state, and I have the pleasure of working with them,” said Rachel Pophman, president of Georgia’s Healthcare Science Technology Educators Association, in an email announcing Hartley’s selection. “This is a huge accomplishment, and I am proud to lead our state organization with members that have such a drive for excellence in all that they do.”
As an ambassador, Hartley will co-host national webinars, assist with major events like the Health Occupations Students of America International Leadership Conference, and promote national engagement within the health science career education community.
Also, in January, Hartley was named the New Allied Health Teacher of the Year by the Healthcare Science Technology Educators Association at its Winter Conference in Savannah.

That honor qualified her to compete for the Georgia Association for Career & Technical Education’s New Teacher of the Year award, which will be presented June 16–18 at the Association’s conference in Athens. Hartley, as a nominee from the Healthcare Science division, will compete against new teacher nominees from 11 other division winners.
Hartley just completed her third year as Bulloch County’s Therapeutic Allied Health & Medicine career pathway instructor, which is housed at Southeast Bulloch High in Brooklet.

Drawing from her own experiences, she said she knows firsthand how career technical education can prepare high school students for entry into the medical field.

Open to students from all three of the school district’s high schools, the pathway serves more than 130 students annually and includes three levels: Introduction to Healthcare, Essentials of Healthcare, which satisfies science credit requirements, and Allied Health, which features clinical rotations twice weekly in over 35 local hospitals and medical offices, including East Georgia Regional Medical Center in Statesboro.
The career pathway is a local pipeline for future healthcare professionals. In 2025, Hartley successfully earned renewal of the pathway’s national Industry Certification status for a fourth time – a standard set by the program’s initial instructor, Sharon Pye.

Industry Certification is a distinction that serves as the highest level for career and technical education programs.
Beyond her teaching role, Hartley also is a registered nurse, a certified emergency nurse and a trauma-certified registered nurse at EGRMC. Her collaboration with the hospital led to clinical experiences being added to her program for qualified students – an innovation that further enriches her program’s real-world relevance and provides students with valuable career readiness skills.
Hartley's students achieved a 93% pass rate on the national healthcare pathway exam in 2024 and 89% this year, significantly exceeding Georgia’s 60% average. Hartley also leads the school’s Health Occupations Student Association chapter, whose student members have earned recognition at both state and national levels of competition.
Hartley earned an associate’s degree in Nursing from Aiken Technical College in 2019, where she was the salutatorian of her nursing program. A year later, she earned her bachelor’s degree in Nursing from Georgia Southern University.
The Georgia Association for Career & Technical Education New Teacher of the Year award recognizes outstanding educators like Hartley who are in their first five years of service, and who have demonstrated excellence in classroom instruction, student achievement, and leadership within the career technical education community.