Where Are They Now? Tami Neff Vardy

Tami Neff Vardy grew up hearing stories from her father, Roy Neff, about his experiences over his 26 years as the superintendent of Dublin Independent School District. For a long time, she thought she would never follow in his footsteps, but after a few years in a different field, Vardy felt called to work in school administration. The rest is history. “My dad and I are one of the few fatherdaughter pairs of superintendents in the whole state of Texas,” she said.

Vardy graduated from Dublin High School in 1990, and went on to Texas Tech University. She graduated from Texas Tech in 1994 with a degree in English, and married her college sweetheart, Chris Vardy.

Vardy’s first job out of college was working as an editor at Harcourt Brace, a publishing company in Fort Worth that produced college textbooks. “I primarily edited psychology and social sciences,” she said. “I’d get the manuscript as this huge stack of papers from the author and edit them, and then send them abc in FedEx boxes. They’d make the changes and send them back and we’d continue that process until the books were printed and bound.”

She worked there for seven years before she decided to return to her roots, careerwise. “I started noticing school buses and thinking, ‘I miss that,’” she said. “Education just felt like a calling.”

So Vardy earned her alternative certification and started teaching at Burleson ISD. She taught third and fourth grade for three years, and then took a job as an advocate for at-risk students at the middle school. “I helped kids that were in jeopardy of not completing and going on to high school,” she said. “I was very blessed to have a principal that included being on the administrative team, and within a year, I became an assistant principal at the middle school.”

Vardy stayed at the middle school for a year and a half before taking a job as principal of an elementary school in Burleson. Three years later she took another principal job in Mansfield, Texas, and then a promotion to the Director of Student Services.

She stayed in Mansfield for four years until, in January of 2020, Vardy was hired as the superintendent of Boyd ISD in Boyd, Texas, a small town outside of Fort Worth. “I started like two months before the pandemic,” she said. “It’s been wild.”

Just after she started her new job, Vardy was thrown headfirst into uncharted territories, having to navigate the school shutdowns, find ways to help students who did not have internet access, and lead a group of teachers and administrators who were just as blindsided as she was.

“It was just a ton of confusion,” she said. “But we had to keep going and focus on the kids. During that time, I along with other staff got on school buses and took meals out to kids where they are, because 60 percent of our students are economically disadvantaged, and a lot of our kids get their home cooked meals from school. First and foremost we had to make sure everyone was fed and safe.”

Then, Vardy had to tackle the issue of helping the students learn when they couldn’t be in person. “Starting out we had a lot of paper packets because a lot of kids weren’t able to get online,” she said. “Eventually we did purchase technology so all of our students either got an iPad in the lower grades or a Chromebook in the upper grades so we could start having lessons online.”

Through all the chaos, “the staff was just incredible,” Vardy said. “They just started going with it, and they trusted me and trusted what we needed to do for kids.”

As we approach the end of the second year of COVID, Vardy has settled into a new kind of normal. On an average day, her schedule is filled with meetings with principals and stakeholders. A few nights a week, she can be found attending games or performances put on by the students in her school district.

Boyd is a small town — the population was just over 1,600 at the last census — and Vardy has enjoyed being in a close community again. “It’s similar to Dublin,” she said. “This is a 3A school and a very tight-knit community.”

In February of 2021, her husband Chris Vardy was killed in a car crash on I-35. “When my husband died, the community just totally embraced me,” she said. “My school board members brought me a meal every night. There was such an outpouring of support from my teaching staff.”

Vardy has no plans to leave Boyd in the immediate future. “Right now, I still have a lot to do here,” she said. “When I came to Boyd, the schools were academically unacceptable, and that’s kind of the reason why I came — I’m known as a turnaround person.”

From her very first principal job, Vardy has a history of helping low performing campuses improve. Since she started at Boyd, she and her staff have taken a hard look at how and what they are teaching. “The teachers immediately jumped in and started doing what we were asking them,” she said. “Once they started seeing the success of their students, which they hadn’t seen in the past, they were very excited. Before I didn’t see many smiling faces and today I do, because teachers know what to do and their kids are excelling because of it.”

She plans to stay at Boyd and help in their success as much as she can. “Long story short, I want to continue on here at Boyd,” she said. “We’re just at the tip of the iceberg.”

Boyd also works to improve education outside of her own district. “I’m very big into advocacy,” she said. “I like to go to Austin and advocate on behalf of public education with our legislators and representatives. That’s something that’s very important to me — if we don’t tell our story, someone else will tell it for us.”

When she’s not working, Vardy enjoys spending time with family and being outdoors. “I love to go kayaking,” she said. “And I enjoy driving my jeep.”

Her father Roy Neff currently lives in Burleson, and Vardy visits him often. Her mother, Lynn Neff, passed away from cancer nine years ago. “I could not have made it through the time [after my husband died] without my dad,” she said. “With my mom passing away, he knows exactly what I’m going through and he’s been a huge source of strength for me.”

Vardy and her late husband have two children, Brendan, 23, and Christopher, 21.

Vardy also has a “framily” — a friend family — of three other couples who have been an invaluable support system for her. “We’ve been going on family vacations together since our kids were [toddlers],” Vardy said. “My framily has been a huge source of support for me.”

Throughout her life, Vardy has also found inspiration in her faith. She is currently a member of the First United Methodist Church in downtown Fort Worth.

Vardy’s advice to Dublin graduates is to keep their momentum going in life. “Don’t let anything limit you,” she said. “Seize opportunities, and always have a goal. Although the plans may not work, you can always change the plans. Just always reach for your goals.”