Benjamin Franklin High School Announces 2014 Graduation Speaker

President of the Orleans Parish School Board will speak at Benjamin Franklin High School’s 54th Commencement on Tuesday, May 20, 2014.  

“We are grateful to Mr. Marshall for agreeing to address this year’s graduating class,” said Principal/CEO, Dr. Timothy Rusnak. “His commitment to education and the Greater New Orleans community resonates with the mission of Benjamin Franklin High School.”  

Mr. Marshall is a native New Orleanian, educated at McCarty Elementary in the Lower Ninth Ward at what is now Martin Luther King Elementary, St. Augustine High School, Loyola University and the University of New Orleans.   Elected to the Orleans Parish School Board in 2012, Mr. Marshall currently serves as President of the Orleans Parish School Board. 

Mr. Marshall has served on several local nonprofit boards and has been a member and officer in many school and community organizations.  He presently serves on the board of directors for the Bayou District Foundation which has the responsibility for the redevelopment of the St. Bernard Housing Project area.  

He is married to a former public school English teacher and attorney Dianne Jones Marshall, father of two daughters and one son, five granddaughters and two grandsons.     

About Benjamin Franklin High School Benjamin Franklin High School, located on the University of New Orleans campus, was founded in 1957, its stated mission, to prepare students of high academic achievement to be successful in life.  Franklin has been consistently ranked as a “top public high school in the nation” by U.S. News and World Report, Newsweek, and Business Week magazines and has received the highest School Performance Score in Louisiana, making it the #1 public school in the state again this year.  Franklin is a National Blue Ribbon School.