Ms. Thoma Thacker is a first grade teacher at Little Rock School District in Little Rock, Arkansas. She has been a classroom teacher for 22 years and a literacy coach for one year. She attended her first CGI professional development inservice in 2004. Ms. Thacker has been teaching first grade at Martin Luther King Elementary School for the past 13 years, and has previously taught first grade in another LRSD school. She currently mentors several coworkers in her school district who have participated in CGI workshops. She has been presenting CGI professional development workshops within her school district since 2015.

The children in Little Rock School District come from a variety of racial and economic backgrounds. Her current school is a Title One pre-K-5 school with 96% of students receiving free and reduced lunch. The population of her school is just over 500 students with 12% Caucasian and 85% African American.