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Phil Martin

Phil Martin

Nonpartisan Race

Candidate for Conroe ISD Trustee, Position 3

About

Financial planning professional who has worked with school districts and municipal leaders in the Houston area. Graduate of the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business. Holds multiple licenses with FINRA and has served numerous public school districts in a fiduciary capacity. Provided financial analysis to public school officials testifying before the Texas Legislature on the effects of House Bill 3, Senate Bill 4, and Senate Bill 23.
Campaign Website Campaign Contributions

Conservative Endorsements

None found

Other Endorsements

Candidate Videos

Meet the Candidate
School Board Testimony

Survey Responses

Community Impact
iVoter Guide
Montgomery Co. Tea Party

Notable Quotes

“An annual look backward is not a substitute for oversight before major spending decisions are made.”
“Public schools win with strong academics, safe campuses, and great teachers.”

Positions on Texas Eagle Forum Priorities

Border Security & Immigration
  • No public statements found.
Education Issues
  • CHALLENGES FACING THE DISTRICT: "Enrollment is projected to decline for the first time in years while state funding shifts every session and the district carries significant debt. Re-bid stale contracts, eliminate overlap, protect classrooms first. And seven campuses earned a D or F. Those students can't wait."[1]
  • SUPPORTING TEACHERS: "Pay them like professionals and treat them like professionals. Make competitive, consistent raises the first budget priority. Trust their expertise instead of scripting their classrooms, cut paperwork unrelated to teaching, seek teacher input before board votes, and back them up on the hard days."[1]
  • PREVENTING BUDGET SHORTFALLS: "Budget on data, not hope. Build multi-year projections on demographic reality. Competitively re-bid contracts that renew untouched, consolidate overlapping services, evaluate outsourcing versus in-house costs, and maintain a healthy fund balance. Then publish the projections and be transparent with taxpayers about the trade-offs."[1]
  • CLASSROOM DISCIPLINE: "Learning requires an environment where students and teachers feel safe and where disruption doesn't derail the classroom for everyone else. Consequences aren't about punishment for its own sake - they establish clear expectations and boundaries, which is what actually makes order, focus, and real learning possible."[1]
  • FOUNDING DOCUMENTS: "Students can't understand their rights, responsibilities, or system of government without a solid grounding in founding documents like the Declaration and Constitution. That knowledge naturally cultivates patriotism - not blind allegiance, but an informed appreciation for the principles and sacrifices that built the country they're inheriting."[1]
  • SCHOOL CHOICE: "The competition model assumes public schools can respond to lost enrollment by simply improving. In practice, school choice pulls funding and students away unevenly, leaving districts with fixed costs (buildings, staff, transportation) but shrinking resources."[1]
  • COMMON CORE, IB, CRITICAL RACE THEORY, SEL: "Texas never adopted Common Core - state law actually prohibits it...Critical Race Theory concepts are barred from K-12 instruction by state law, and I support that.I firmly oppose International Baccalaureate...SEL should never substitute for academics or bypass parents."[1]
Protect Childhood Innocence
  • REMOVAL OF OBSCENE LIBRARY BOOKS: "Literary merit is a real, distinguishable category, and we already have qualified people to assess it - school librarians with master's degrees in library science, trained specifically in collection development and age-appropriate curation. We should lean on that expertise rather than blanket obscenity standards that don't account for context or literary value."[1]
  • STATED THAT PARENTS BEAR PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITY for their children. "...no one has a greater stake in a child's wellbeing or knows them better. Government's role should be to support and protect that responsibility, not override it."[1][2][3]
Gender Issues
  • WOMEN'S PRIVATE SPACES: "These spaces exist specifically because of biological differences - physical safety, privacy, and fairness in competition. Allowing biological males into women's sports, shelters, locker rooms, or prisons undermines the very purpose these protections serve, particularly for vulnerable populations like abuse survivors and incarcerated women."[1]
  • STATED, "Parents, not the school, should be the ones directing decisions around pregnancy and gender-related care."[1]
Other Constitutional Issues
  • ON SEPARATION OF CHURCH & STATE: "To me, it means public schools should stay focused on education, not religious instruction. Teaching faith is the parents' job, not the school's. With so many different religions represented in a public setting, there's no way to give each equal time and treatment without eating into instructional time - and since school exists to educate, that's where its focus should remain."[1]
Bonus Issue - Property Tax Relief
  • No specific public statements on property tax found. His public materials stress transparency, wise use of dollars, and long-term planning. He stated, “I’d re-bid contracts that have rolled over without competition, eliminate overlapping services, and protect classrooms first.” He supports an efficiency review beyond the required annual audit.[1][2][3]