Fullerton High Superintendent to Retire June 30

The 55-year-old superintendent of the Fullerton Joint Union High School District has unexpectedly announced that he is taking early retirement, effective June 30.

Robert C. Martin of Yorba Linda has held the district’s top administrative post for the past five years.

“If there is ever a good time for an organization to change CEO (chief executive officer), it’s when organization has good direction and momentum and things are going well, and that’s how things are in this school district now,” Martin said.

Bob Singer, president of the high school district’s school board, said that under Martin’s leadership, three district high schools--Troy, Fullerton and Sunny Hills--this year won “distinguished schools” honors from state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig and the state Board of Education.

Singer said the school awards were “a capstone of a period of sustained significant growth in educational performance” in the district, and that Martin wore “the mantle of leadership during this period.”

The sprawling school district, which has 12,000 students in six regular high schools and one continuation high school in north Orange County, announced Thursday that Deputy Supt. J. Kenneth Jones will serve as acting superintendent while a search is made for a successor to Martin. Shirley Finton, spokeswoman for the district, said the school board hopes to name a new superintendent by March, 1989.

Martin, whose current contract does not expire until the summer of 1989, said he will mix retirement with “pursuing plans in the private sector involving patents and copyrights.” He declined to specify what his patents-copyright work will entail, but he acknowledged he has long been a tinkerer “and shade-tree mechanic.”

Martin added, “When you grow up poor as I did, you have to learn how to be a shade-tree mechanic.” Martin grew up in Luxora, Ark., a small Mississippi River community north of Memphis, Tenn. He said education enabled him to escape from poverty “and because the (educational) system was good to me, I felt I had to put something back into that system. . . . I’ve never regretted making education my career. There is no better calling for anybody in the world.”

Martin said he will not immediately plunge into business pursuits. “For the first six months, I’m not going to do anything,” he said.

Martin has been a teacher and education administrator for 32 years. Before coming to Fullerton Joint Union High School District, he was superintendent of the Castro Valley Unified School District in Northern California. He has also held administrative positions in Fremont Union High School District in the San Francisco Bay Area and Huntington Beach Union High School District.

A Navy veteran, Martin used his GI Bill benefits from the Korean War to finance his higher education. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Arkansas State University and his doctorate from USC.

Martin’s daughter, Roberta, attends Arkansas State University.

Fullerton Joint Union High School District serves Fullerton, Yorba Linda, La Habra, Buena Park and portions of Anaheim and La Palma. In addition to Troy, Fullerton and Sunny Hills, the other schools in the district are Buena Park High, Sonora High, La Habra High and La Vista Continuation School.