Longtime principal launched IB program
Ron Beauford’s career in Austin schools spanned 36 years.
Longtime Austin school Principal Ron Beauford, whose education career spanned 36 years in Austin schools, died Feb. 18 of complications from knee surgery. He was 82.
Beauford might best be known for launching the first International Baccalaureate program in Central Texas. The highly rigorous program began at Anderson High School in 1991 amid controversy after some objected to Beauford shifting other school money to the program and discontinuing more traditional honors courses in favor of IB classes. Beauford resigned over the program, prompting someparentsand students to protest in demand for his return.
At that time, the American-Statesman reported that then-Superintendent Jim Hensley reassigned Beauford to an administrative position, the director of computer technology, but the school board eliminated the position from the 1992-93 district budget, district officials said at the time, prompting Beauford to file a grievance against the district. The grievance was dropped in October 1992 when an administrator assured Beauford that his wife, Gail, would be considered for an assistant principal position and Beauford’s issues with the district wouldn’t be held against her. She got the job.
The Austin school board Monday will read a proclamation in honor of Beauford that calls him a visionary for championing the program, the only one in a high school in the Austin district, and a feature that continues to draw transfer students to the school.
“Under the visionary eyes of Mr. Beauford, Anderson High School’s International Baccalaureate Programme was established and has since thrived, bringing the highest academic challenges to children from throughout the district,” the proclamation reads.
Beauford began teaching in 1957 as a biology teacher and the dean of boys at Austin High School, where