Jamila Martin will soon embark on a new career as an administrative monitor at Hahnville High School. While her path to get to that position was a little unusual, it has always been one centered around children.
“Honestly, working with kids is something I have always believed I would do, just not as a teacher,” Martin said. “I grew up watching my mom work with kids in various capacities. She would help tutor neighborhood kids, worked with kids in Sunday school, and always had a way with younger people.
“They gravitated towards her. So, that definitely influenced my desire to do something similar.”
Martin has now been working with the youth in various capacities for more than 20 years. She began her career working with at-risk children at the Girls and Boys Town in New Orleans and then moved on to serve as a juvenile probation officer in Jefferson Parish. After that, she was a caseworker with Child Protective Services in Dallas, where she had moved after Hurricane Katrina.
With a bachelor of science in psychology from Xavier University, Martin eventually returned to school to get an alternative teaching certification so that she could reach kids on a different level.
“I realized a lot of the issues the kids I was working with were dealing with were centered around a lack of a good education,” Martin said.
She began her teaching career in Cedar Hill, Texas before returning to the area to work for St. Charles Parish Public Schools where she was a teacher at R.K. Smith Middle School from 2012-2022.
“I taught every grade level at some point during those 10 years and every subject except math at some point,” she said. “The things I enjoyed the most about teaching at R. K. Smith were the connections I made with so many students, the lifelong relationships I built with my students and their families, the friendships I made with some of the faculty and staff, and working under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Harold Blood.”
Additionally, Martin coached both basketball and track, and was named R.K. Smith’s Teacher of the Year in 2020.
“I was shocked when I was named the R.K. Smith’s Teacher of the Year,” she said. “After the initial shock wore off, I became really emotional just thinking about my entire teaching career up until that point and how rewarding it felt to be recognized for all of my years of hard work.”
In 2022, Martin made one of the hardest decisions of her life when she decided to leave R.K. Smith to serve as a student advocate in the district’s Child Welfare and Attendance office.
“I just felt like it was time for me to venture off and try something new,” she said. “I knew I did not want to spend my entire time in education as a classroom teacher.”
As an advocate, Martin helped students with discipline and truancy concerns.
“I would be out in the field meeting with students at different schools. Some days, I would have to attend truancy court or an expulsion hearing,” she said. “There were also days that I would be in the office most of the day, working on reports, contacting parents, or speaking to school personnel about any student concerns they had.
“No two days were ever the same.”
Martin received another surprise when she was recently offered a position on the administrative team at Hahnville High School. Martin had never worked in a high school before, but says her previous experiences have always allowed her to connect to that age group well.
Martin recently graduated from Southeastern with her Masters in Educational Leadership, which qualified her for the position.
The duties of an administrative monitor are similar to those of an assistant principal. Martin will assist with discipline, evaluate teachers, help with after-school activities, lead different task forces and teams and perform any other duties assigned to her by the principal.
“I am extremely excited! I know it will be challenging at times, but I’ve never backed down from a challenge,” she said. “I also know that it will be rewarding, and that is what I’m most looking forward to—those memorable moments that I will continue to make with our students.”
