When a student at Darien High School in 1996 approached a young Stephen Rexford about becoming a staff advisor for their school paper, the Neirad, he had no idea what he was getting himself into.
“These were students who were curious about things, that loved to write, that loved to make a difference in their community, and at the same time wanted to be part of a team,” Rexford said. “So I immediately started to really enjoy school papers.”
After an expansive career spanning multiple decades and schools – from Westport to Tarrytown, NY, from private to public, from high to middle, from language arts to Introduction to Journalism – the 2024-25 school year will be Rexford’s last year as a teacher before retiring. Beyond his instruction in the classroom, he has both advised and founded multiple school publications over the years, inspiring hundreds of impassioned students.
“Here [journalism] was a chance to teach kids that they can make a difference in their community,” Rexford said.
In his professional career, he taught at Darien High School and Hackley, a private school in Tarrytown, NY, before he returned to SHS and became a staff advisor of Inklings. In 2014, he founded Ursus at Bedford Middle School, a Columbia Crown Award winning publication. Many Ursus alumni continue their pursuit of journalism in Inklings and beyond.
“Mr. Rexford was easily one of the most passionate teachers I’ve ever had. His clear, unbridled enthusiasm for journalism was the reason I do Inklings today and I feel so incredibly grateful to have had him as a teacher, both for eighth grade English and throughout my time at Ursus,” Alex Gaines ’25 said. “Ursus was my main extracurricular activity in middle school and my devotion to it can be directly attributed to what an incredible advisor he was.”
Even beyond Ursus, many students who had Rexford as a teacher remember his engaging style of teaching and passion for English.
“On the first day of school, he did an elephant toothpaste experiment, which isn’t something I would expect an English teacher to do,” Sienna Sedlarcik ’26 said. “But it created a really fun and welcoming environment that continued for the rest of the year.”
Part of Rexford’s reason for his involvement in student journalism is his firm belief in the importance and the rights of students to freedom of the press within their schools.
“The First Amendment gives you power, but it also gives you responsibility, and to watch [students debating it right in front of you], are some fun memories,” Rexford said.
Before teaching at Staples for years, he attended Staples as a student, and his learning there was a large part of the reason he pursued teaching.
“[My family loved books], my grandmother would give me books like ‘Jane Eyre,’ every Dickens book. Probably because I also had great Staples teachers when I went to Staples,” he said.
Even though Rexford is retiring after decades of devotion to the betterment of Westport’s schools, he will continue to give back even in this new stage of his life.
“In retirement, I’m going to work with an organization in Stamford called Future 5, and it helps kids in Stamford,” Rexford said. “It provides a tutoring service […] what it also does is it’s sort of a mentoring program for kids who are going off to college. I learned about them and I thought, ‘ooh, that sounds like a really rewarding part time opportunity.”
Retirement offers an exciting new opportunity for Rexford, with more time to pursue his hobbies. But Westport schools, and the thousands of students that he has positively affected, are sure to miss him as a fixture of Bedford.
“I have some fishing trips planned, because I love to fish, and I wanna go to the U.S. Open […] and just to have free weekends,” he said. “But I have this feeling I’m going to miss it all.”
