OHS’s Caffeys moving to East Texas school district near family
Olney High School Principal Matt Caffey and his wife, teacher Lani Caffey, leave their posts this summer to work their magic at the Anderson-Shiro Consolidated Independent School District after a six-year tenure that brought national honors to OHS.
The Caffeys, including 8-yearold Magnolia and 12-year-old Will, are making the move to be closer to Lani Caffey’s family in East Texas. Matt Caffey takes over as principal of Anderson-Shiro Junior-Senior High School, and Lani Caffey will teach at the middle school.
The Enterprise talked to the Caffeys about what they will miss the most about Olney, and about their accomplishments - including the 2021 U.S. News & World Report listing as one of America’s best high schools.
Enterprise: What are you proudest of as you look back on six years in Olney High School classrooms?
Matt Caffey: We have more opportunities for advanced academics and better Career and Technical Education opportunities. And that’s been in great part due to the vision of Dr. Roach.
We have implemented a manufacturing and machining program, which is an answer to a labor need in the community. We brought Casey Keeter in to teach that, and he is phenomenal.
We had sputterings of an Advanced Placement program in the past but I was really fortunate in that when I came in, Jina Nickel came in the same year and I talked her into doing dual high school-college classes with an Advanced Placement overlay.
Mrs. Nickel introduced the AP program and she hit just the right notes, as far as teaching with the level of rigor that is needed even that first year. We were able to hire Will Stewart a couple of years later. He has a master’s in biology, which enabled him to teach dual credit classes in biology and anatomy and physiology and chemistry for us for the last four years. He really contributes to a culture of college preparedness.
We brought in Ashley Ballard and she took us from the mid-seventies or low eighties on our Algebra I EOC (End-Of-Course Assessment) scores to the mid-nineties. She also allows us to offer Calculus. This year we hired Courtney Hantz who teaches College Algebra and College Trig as our pre-cal course. I’d put up my math department here in Olney against any school in the state in terms of quality.
Enterprise: Let’s talk about the Debate Team. How has the program changed during your tenure and how are you leaving it?
Lani Caffey: When we started, Ms. Stephens did Lincoln-Douglas debate and other speaking events, and she was already doing a great job. I was able to have my own debate class, and that was a game changer. I get to have those kids every single day to help prepare them into practice for tournaments. With CX, we actually had competition our first few years, but the past few years, other schools don’t want to compete against us. This year, (the district competition) was just my two teams. So I made them debate against each other, and we advanced to state and the first day they were competing against the other top teams in the state.
What’s so hard about leaving is because these kids are right where I wanted them to be. They are intrinsically motivated now because they’ve had the results of winning and it’s taken five years to get here. So even if they have someone come in that doesn’t understand every bit of Congress or CX, they know, and they can help teach the other kids as long as there’s a supportive adult that will help guide them.
Enterprise: Is there anything you want to say to the people of Olney?
Lani Caffey: I just appreciate, especially with Debate, all the support people have shown to those kids. It’s a lot of work and mental effort, and they really put themselves out there and have to be vulnerable to speak in front of all these people.
Matt Caffey: I see a Title I school here that has a 70% economically disadvantaged population, that is over 50% Hispanic, that we take in English language learners and produce college bound students. I think that’s a testament to the support that our community gives to their own kids and this school.Being the highest ranked school in our region, it’s very satisfying knowing we’re taking a population that other people might write off and we’re making them successful and it’s making a better Olney, because some of those kids are going to go away and not come back, but a large percentage of them will go earn a credential, get an education, develop a skill, and then they’re going to come back to Olney to make it a better place.