Ida and COVID's disrputions haven't dimmed Philip Martin's love for helping students

Philip Martin has addressed a lot of graduates over his 15 years as Terrebonne Parish's public schools chief, but this week may have been the last. Martin will retire June 30 when his contract as superintendent ends.

"I've enjoyed what I've been doing, but I'm also looking forward to retirement," Martin said in a recent interview.

The superintendent is the top administrator of Louisiana's 13th largest school system. It enrolls about 17,000 students and employs 1,700 teachers and support workers with a combined budget of nearly $200 million a year.

Martin, 70, has said more than once that the thing he will miss most from his 48-year career in education is working to help students.

"When you run across a former student who is now a parent and they thank you for something you taught them,” Martin said, "it’s probably the most gratifying experience."

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One of those former students is School Board member Michael LaGarde, 50, who has known Martin since seventh grade. He said he already misses Martin and added that the School Board would have given him another year if he wanted it.

LaGarde remembers Martin, then a principal, paddling him for misbehaving at school when he was 12 years old. Now, LaGarde said, the two joke about the incident.

"From going from a student to working alongside him, I saw a different man," LaGarde said. "He's a very fair guy."

LaGarde praised Martin's efforts to encourage diversity among the school's teachers and employees.

"He worked very hard with James Charles to bring people of color into the school system," LaGarde said.

Charles, who broke racial boundaries as the first Black person to serve as a high school principal and assistant superintendent in Terrebonne Parish, died in 2020 at age 77.

Martin's office is filled with photos of his family, as well as pictures of ducks and deer, and he said he plans to spend time with all of them during retirement.

During the past three years, Martin has led the district through some of its toughest challenges. The global COVID pandemic and state-mandated health precautions forced major changes in the way students were educated, and schools had to adapt as waves of the deadly virus swept through the parish.

While other parishes went online only, or enacted a combination of online and on-campus instruction, Terrebonne carried on with in-person classes. Laptops and distance learning were offered, but Martin said they don't compare to classroom education.

"COVID taught us that a teacher in the classroom hasn't been replaced," he said. "But our kids, at the end of the year, demonstrated that it wasn't a lost year."

Hurricane Ida, which hit Aug. 29, destroyed or damaged many of the system's buildings and prompted changes in scheduling and other procedures. Students from several schools in the parish's bayou communities shared buildings. Ellender High students attended classes in the afternoons at Terrebonne High. South Terrebonne students did the same at H.L. Bourgeois High.

"I've been in the district 48 years, and this is by far the most profoundly destructive hurricane that I've experienced," Martin said.

Martin said he is proud that as soon as power was restored, students were back in the classroom. Recovering from the storm remains a top priority and will be for years, he added. Repairs are expected to cost well over $200 million. Temporary campuses are being constructed at Ellender High in Houma and South Terrebonne High in Bourg.

"So at least those kids will be returning to their campus, not their building, but their campus while their building is either repaired or replaced," Martin said. "And it's going to take years to do, whatever one happens it's going to take a long time."

Martin's decisions during the pandemic and after Ida didn't please everyone, School Board President Greg Harding said, but that was inevitable. Harding compared it to calling a basketball game, though the issues were much weightier.

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"You've gotta call one or the other, if you don't call one or the other, you've got everybody mad at you, but if you call one, you've only got half of 'em mad at you," Harding said. "Nobody had a playbook to go by [for COVID], and it was kind of like going on what you thought was the best decision at that particular time. ... I think we did the best we could do with the information that was provided to us."

Harding cited a new Southdown Elementary, a new classroom wing at H.L. Bourgeois High, a new Grand Caillou Middle School and expansion of Mulberry Elementary among Martin's accomplishments with the School Board. The district has also improved dramatically on its state academic performance scores under Martin's tenure.

"It's going to be sad to see Mr. Martin leave, but also on the other hand it's going to be exciting to see a new superintendent to come in and to work with that individual," Harding said.

Martin will be succeeded by Assistant Superintendent Bubba Orgeron, who starts as superintendent July 1.

This article originally appeared on The Courier: Terrebonne's public schools chief retirement nears, Martin reflects