In 1976, a younger faculty instructor from Philadelphia arrived in Key West, the place she had accepted a job instructing English at a Catholic faculty then often known as Mary Immaculate Excessive Faculty (immediately’s Basilica Faculty).
Theresa “Terri” Axford spent seven years instructing there and was promoted to principal earlier than the Archdiocese of Miami closed the highschool in 1986. At the moment, Bookie Henriquez, then-superintendent of the county faculty district, employed Axford to show English at Key West Excessive Faculty, launching what would develop into a 38-year profession with the Monroe County Faculty District.
That profession will finish July 31, when Axford retires, having served as a instructor, assistant principal, principal, district administrator and at last as superintendent. She’s going to go the reins to incoming superintendent Ed Tierney. Axford was appointed to the district’s prime job in 2020, simply in time for COVID to upend every little thing the world had beforehand identified.
“Once I took over as superintendent, college students had been simply beginning to return to highschool, with highschool children attending each different day, as a result of we didn’t have the capability to unfold them out as required,” Axford recalled when talking with the Keys Weekly on July 7. “After the governor issued his mandate that colleges reopen for in-person instructing, there was a lot worry and ambiguity amongst college students, mother and father and lecturers. So I created a countywide back-to-school process pressure to navigate all of the challenges and questions.”
After dealing for 2 years with spikes in infections, contact tracing, canceled sports activities seasons, the maelstrom over masks and always evolving variants of the virus, Axford was lastly capable of return the varsity district to regular over the previous three years, and managed a number of accomplishments that she views as capstones to her profession.
“I’m most happy with having been capable of transfer ahead with creating instructor and worker housing on our Trumbo Highway property in Key West,” she mentioned, including that the varsity board just lately signed an settlement with Vestcor builders to construct 150 housing items on the property that presently homes the district’s administrative headquarters, which shall be transferring into the varsity district-owned Bruce Corridor constructing on United Road as soon as it’s renovated.
Axford two years in the past secured $2 million in state funding for the phased plan to renovate Bruce Corridor, transfer the executive headquarters and make room for brand new housing for lecturers. At this yr’s legislative session, Axford and the Keys’ elected officers in Tallahassee helped safe a further $3.5 million “that can permit all of the items to fall into place.”
Axford additionally oversaw a 29% improve in beginning instructor salaries since she began as superintendent in 2020, elevating the start wage from $48,000 to $62,100, which has helped alleviate the Keys’ annual instructor shortages.
“Theresa Axford has been greater than a colleague — she’s been a mentor, a trailblazer and a fierce advocate for what’s proper in training,” deputy superintendent Amber Acevedo mentioned of her longtime colleague. “Her management has formed the guts of this district, and her legacy will proceed to encourage us as we construct on the muse she so thoughtfully laid.”
Underneath Axford’s management, the varsity district has greater than doubled its fund stability, or wet day financial savings for hurricanes and different emergencies, from $7.5 million in 2020 to $16 million this yr.
“The shortage of housing and decrease salaries in 2023 actually hit me arduous,” Axford recalled. “We needed to begin faculty that yr with greater than 30 openings nonetheless unfilled.”
The long-awaited worker housing ought to assist stop such shortages for many years to return.
Axford mentioned she can be proud to have elevated the varsity district’s partnerships with native arts organizations to reveal 6,000 or 9,000 complete college students to creative subject journeys and cultural alternatives, and although she’s retiring, Theresa Axford isn’t going wherever.
“I dwell in Key West; I’m staying in Key West and can proceed to be concerned in native training efforts.”
Educating, main and guiding the Florida Keys’ younger individuals has been her ardour since 1976, and a few issues by no means change.