Friends invited to join induction for Hall of Distinguished Educators

October 2, 2024

NATCHITOCHES - Northwestern State University's Gallaspy College of Education and Human Development will honor four alumni with induction into the Hall of Distinguished Educations Saturday, Oct. 26.

This year's Distinguished Educators are Andrea Lisenbea Martin, William "Bill" Morrison and Julio Toro. Jonathan Parish will be honored as Outstanding Young Professional.

A reception for the honorees will begin at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 26 in the Commons Area at the Teacher Education Center, 150 Tarleton Drive. The induction ceremony will start at 11 a.m. Friends, colleagues and alumni are invited to attend.

Andrea Lisenbea Martin

Martin graduated from Northwestern State in 1965. Her first job was at West Leesville Elementary. Because of the military base, students were constantly moving in and out and it seemed she had a new class each six weeks. The next year she taught first and second grade Westside Elementary in Winn Parish. While there, she taught first and second grade with classes of 30-35 children. Second grade was her favorite. She was teaching when the district implemented integration over the Christmas holiday. After the break, the number of children in the school had greatly increased, the teachers were paired up and classes were crowded.

In 1973 she completed her master's degree and in 1975, earned 30+ from Louisiana Tech University. She added leadership certification, reading specialist and gifted education to her teaching certificate. She was selected as an Outstanding Elementary Teacher of America in 1973.

Martin served as a reading coordinator for Westside, and later Eastside Elementary and Sikes High School. In 1976, she became the PATL (Positive Attitudes Toward Learning) project coordinator. In 1977 she was the Title III gifted/talented teacher and parish coordinator. From 1980-1984, she was the SPUR (Special Plan Upgrading Reading) team leader.

Martin became principal of Winnfield Kindergarten School in 1984. She served as the president of the Louisiana Association of Elementary School Principals and as an executive board member for the Louisiana Association of Principals. She was initiated into Phi Delta Kappa in 1987. In 1993, she was a Principal of the Year finalist and National Distinguished Principal Zone 8-Louisiana. She was named the Louisiana Elementary Principal of the Year and National Distinguished Principal in 1997. After her retirement, she was the executive director of the Louisiana Association of Principals for 16 years.

Throughout her career, Martin served on numerous local, district, state and national committees, task forces and teams. She delivered numerous hours of professional development to assist other educators and has been a faithful advocate for public education. She was honored as a 50-year member of the Omicron Chapter of Alpha Delta Kappa International Teachers' Sorority. Through the years, she has held many chapter offices and volunteered for numerous committees. She has been an active wife, parent, grandparent and great grandparent while serving her school, church and community. Two of her children and two of her grandchildren entered the field of education.

William "Bill" Morrison

Morrison is a retired educator with 30 years experience in teaching and administration at the district and state levels. He earned his bachelor's degree from NSU in 1983, and in 1997 earned a Master's of Education in Educational Technology from NSU. In 2000 he earned a Doctor of Education from NSU in Educational Technology. In addition to his experience in PK-12 teaching and administration, he has 25 years higher education experience in graduate-level teaching/academics and program development and administration.

Morrison began his career as a secondary math and science teacher in Rapides Parish. After several years, he went into the private sector for nine years where he worked for an educational technology company and for five years owned his own technology company that specialized in educational systems, custom programming, and networking. He then returned to education in Rapides Parish as the Technology Specialist for the Special Education Department where he was responsible for technology staff development, assistive technology assessment and implementation, and technology budgeting and purchasing for the Special Education Department.

In 1997, Morrison became the first director of Technology for Rapides Parish. As the district's chief technology officer, he was responsible for all instructional and administrative technology for the 50-school district with 24,000 students. In this role he and his team wrote and received over $13 million in competitive federal, state and private grants for educational technology. Additionally, the department received a grant for and implemented a regional technology training center that served eight districts in central Louisiana and provided training to over 1,400 teachers annually for almost 10 years. During his 15 years as Technology Director, his department networked all 54 district schools and offices with fiber optics and brought over 10,000 computers into the district.

Morrison's last two years with the Rapides Parish School Board saw him serve as the Assistant Superintendent of Administration for the district. In this role he assisted the superintendent in all administrative responsibilities for the district including personnel matters (3,400 employees), district purchasing, interface with budgeting and finance, bids, surveys, litigation and court actions, supervision of district plant facilities and maintenance, construction, school food services, child welfare and attendance, transportation, insurance and risk management and working with principals, staff and parents to ensure that school board policies were implemented.

From Rapides Parish, Morrison moved to the Louisiana Department of Education as the Assistant Superintendent of the Office of Assessments. Here, he led the state's work for all areas of PK-12 statewide assessment including the development, administration and reporting of large-scale summative assessments including LEAP, iLEAP, End of Course Examinations and the statewide management and administration of other assessments such as the ACT. In this role, he also served as the Louisiana assessment lead and liaison to the U.S. Department of Education and other state education departments to establish and maintain productive relationships with key national organizations involved in assessment issues and represent the LDOE in cross-organizational activities.

For the final seven years of his career, Morrison served as a tenured associate professor in NSU's School of Education as the program coordinator for the Adult Learning and Development (EDAL) program. His initial work in the EDAL program was to redesign and re-envision the Master of Arts in Adult Learning and Development program, formerly the Adult Education program. Over a period of two years, he worked with the development of 12 completely new courses and created two program concentrations: eLearning and Adult and Workforce Development. After the redesign of the master's program, Morrison was tasked with creating a Doctor of Education Program in Adult Learning and Development with Community College Leadership and Adult Learning concentrations. The program development took over five years and involved receiving approval from the Louisiana Board of Regents for the program, designing 22 new doctoral courses, creating dissertation and research formats and protocols, receiving SACS approval and recruiting and enrolling student cohorts. The initial cohort of 20 students was accepted in 2017, with the first graduates completing the program and graduating in the spring of 2021. At that time, the doctoral program had grown to over 80 students, making it one of the largest at NSU and one of the larger doctoral programs in Louisiana.

In addition to his PK-12 and NSU work, Morrison also served as an adjunct graduate instructor for NSU from 1997 to 2002 and for Lesley University of Cambridge, Massachusetts, from 2003-2010. Over the final 20 years of his career, he made over three dozen presentations, most at the national level, wrote numerous articles for national publications and served in over 50 professional roles and activities. Additionally, he received numerous professional awards at the state and national level, including the International Society for Technology in Education Making It Happen award.

Julio Toro

A 1974 honor graduate of Leesville High School, Toro earned a degree in social studies education with minors in English and Spanish in 1978, a master's degree in secondary teaching in 1984, and master's degree +30 graduate hours in school administration in 1986. Toro is an educator with 39 years of experience that includes teaching, secondary school administration and elementary school administration in Louisiana (20 years) and Texas (19 years). His teaching and administrative experience includes 13 years as a secondary school teacher, 20 years as a secondary school principal and six years as an elementary school principal.

In 1979, Toro began his teaching career at Leesville Junior High School as a seventh grade reading and spelling teacher. The following school year, he was transferred to Leesville High School where he taught U.S. history, civics, and Spanish. In 1986, Toro was voted as Leesville High School "Teacher of the Year" by the LHS faculty.In 1987, he was promoted to assistant principal of Leesville High School. Major responsibilities included the areas of curriculum, discipline and implementation of the school's new administrative computer software program. While assistant principal, he served two years as an adjunct instructor at NSU's Leesville/Fort Johnson campus.

In 1990, Toro became principal of Natchitoches Central High School. He devoted much time and energy improving the school climate and curriculum, believing a safe and well-disciplined school is essential for learning to take place. During his nine-year tenure at NCHS, Toro was named "Administrator of the Year" by the Louisiana Association of Computer Using Educators (1994), "Natchitoches Parish Principal of the Year" (1997), and "selected Region III Secondary Principal of the Year" (1997). In November 1992, Toro with the assistance of an outstanding faculty and staff led NCHS to become one of five Louisiana school nominated to be a Blue Ribbon School.

In 1999, Toro retired after 20 years from the Louisiana Education System and became principal of San Marcos High School in San Marcos, Texas. In three years, under his leadership and the assistance of a remarkable faculty and staff SMHS was named a Texas Education Agency "Recognized Campus." Toro would complete the last six years of his career at the Grand Prairie Independent School District in Grand Prairie, Texas, working as a principal at the elementary school level. His elementary schools covered Pre-K through 6^th grade and included Two-Way Dual Language classrooms and Full-Day Pre-School Program for Children with Disabilities (PPCD). He retired from the from the Texas Education System in June 2018 after working in Texas for 19 years.

Jonathan Parish

Parish is an educator with 11 years of middle school education experience that has included teaching, curriculum development, school leadership team duties and sponsoring of various extracurriculars. He earned a bachelor's degree in criminal justice at NSU in 2011 and a Master's in the Art of Teaching in 2014. His experience in all 11 years of his career have been at the middle school level.

Parish began his career in 2013 at Ebarb High School in Sabine Parish and then transitioned to Natchitoches Magnet School in 2016. While at Natchitoches Magnet, Parish was named the middle school Teacher of the Year for Natchitoches Magnet for the 2017-2018 school year, coordinated the school Social Studies Fair for the past seven years and served as advisor for the Natchitoches Magnet chapter of National Junior Honor Society.

Parish has begun advancing his career beyond the classroom into mentor and leadership roles. In 2020, he earned state mentorship certification and has served as a mentor teacher for several NSU students, for both Methods work and Mentorship placement. During the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years, he also served as the junior high Lead Teacher at Natchitoches Magnet, working with the school's Instructional Leadership Team and as a mentor to his junior high colleagues.

His wife, Erin Parish, is also a teacher. They have one daughter, Nora.

NSU's Homecoming activities will take place Oct. 25-26. A schedule of events is available at www.northwesternstatealumni.com. Information on NSU's Gallaspy College of Education and Human Development is available at https://www.nsula.edu/gcehd/.

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