Dr. Beverly Oxley Named Franklin Co School System Pioneer in Education

Dr. Beverly Oxley has been named Franklin County School System’s Pioneer in Education.
Oxley was presented the award at a ceremony last week held by Pioneer RESA in Cleveland, GA.

To be a “Pioneer in Education” is to not strive to be the best IN the world but strive to be what is best FOR the world.

Dr. Oxley has done just that and has made a huge difference in the lives of those residing not only in Franklin County but in many surrounding counties.

Dr. Oxley is a former special education teacher and school psychologist, serving 21 years in  Franklin County. From the beginning of her career in Oklahoma, Dr. Oxley has worked to improve the lives and education of those students to whom neither came easily.

Dr. Oxley’s educational and professional career spans fifty-four years. She served students in Oklahoma and Georgia through her work as a teacher and school psychologist. At the age of 49, she entered a Ph.D. program in psychology and then taught in the Education and Psychology Departments at Emmanuel University for ten years full-time and seven years as an adjunct. During this time, she realized the serious
need for mental health services in our area and she and her husband, Paul, built and opened Wellsprings Psychological Resources in 2009.

After several years of serving foster children at Wellsprings Psychological Resources, in 2014, Dr. Oxley founded The Ark Family Preservation Center.

The non-profit has the mission of Healing, Equipping, and Empowering families. Since its inception, The Ark has served broken families through a unique process of coaching and
teaching parents who have lost custody of their children through addiction, abuse, or other negative factors.

Utilizing a research-based curriculum, Dr. Oxley has trained her coaches to work with the most broken families in our community. Weekly supervised visits allow changes to take place that heal the hurts, equip parents to understand their roles, and empower them to become healthy families.

Dr. Oxley likes to say that The Ark has a 100% success rate …either the parents do
the right things and regain the custody of their children or the children are adopted into healthy functioning families. The Ark serves students and families in 10 different counties, six of which are in Pioneer RESA.

Initially operating out of a 60-square-foot storefront building, Dr. Oxley has worked tirelessly to raise community awareness and money to support the workings of The Ark. In 2022, a beautiful facility was completed debt-free to house The Ark.

Since moving into the building, the number of families served at one time has more than doubled. Currently, The Ark employs four parent coaches, most of whom are retired teachers, and a Program Director. In addition to supervised visits and coaching, Dr. Oxley has led the staff to provide parenting classes, anger management classes and to work with addiction issues.

Dr. Oxley’s work through The Ark and Wellsprings has supported students coming from very difficult situations and given them a chance they would not have otherwise.