For 25 years, this Philly teacher made a difference. Even at retirement, he’s still there for his students.

Linwood Stevens Jr. is retiring on Wednesday after 25 years spent teaching in Philadelphia schools.

But don’t worry, he told his classes: He’ll still be there for them.

“I told my students, ‘Call me even after I’m retired, I will help,’” said Stevens, a Frankford High math teacher. “I want them to be able to go into their algebra Keystone exams confidently.”

That’s classic Stevens — with and for his students in the most profound way.

Stevens is a gem, Frankford principal Michael Calderone said: “a generational educator that few can ever rival.”

But Stevens didn’t always know teaching was in the cards. He grew up in Nicetown, on Sydenham Street near Broad and Erie, the son of parents who worked hard — a postal-worker father who’d come home from the night shift, then get dressed for his second full-time job as a non-teaching assistant in city schools; and a mother who kept their home running like clockwork.

“I knew what hard work was,” said Stevens. “We weren’t rich as far as money was concerned, but I had a family where education was stressed; we were rich in terms of love, and despite the things that were going on around me, I felt a sense of security.”

Stevens, who came of age amid Philadelphia’s gang wars, was encouraged at home, and at school, at Kenderton Elementary and at Central High. He followed his sister to Temple University, where he earned a scholarship as a walk-on to the track team, but struggled academically, for a time.

“I kind of stumbled a little bit. I tell my students this — ‘I was a little bit tired of school,’” he said. But a failed art history final brought his grade-point average under a 2.0, and Temple sent a warning: Bring the grades up, or else. It was a wake-up moment for Stevens, who righted the ship and graduated with a business degree.

Jobs in corporate America followed. They brought paychecks, but not a sense of purpose. When he was working for Philip Morris, the tobacco giant, he saw “an ugly side” of the business — an emphasis on profits, not people, Stevens said.

“I just wanted to feel better about what I was doing,” said Stevens. His sister had become a teacher, and Stevens loved the way he felt when he walked into her classroom at Kenderton, their old elementary school. A chance encounter with someone who mentioned a program designed to get more Black men into Philadelphia classrooms intrigued him, but Stevens wasn’t sure — he was in his 30s, with children, had just gone through a divorce, and would have to take a pay cut.

But Stevens always remembered his mother telling him he’d make a good teacher. In 1998, he took the leap, signing on to work at what was then Vaux Middle School, which became a high school during Stevens’ time there.

Salome Thomas-El, then assistant principal at Vaux, hired Stevens, and remembers when he walked in the building for the first time. Students and staff sat up a little straighter when the imposing educator walked in. (Stevens is 6′5″.)

“He immediately connected with the students; he just had a heart for the kids,” said Thomas-El. “He became an immediate mentor, role model, father figure for kids. He let them know, ‘I’m from the same type of neighborhood as you.’”

Still, those first years were tough for Stevens, especially as he worked full days, then clocked a second shift as a student, earning a graduate degree in education at La Salle University.

But Stevens loved the work, taking to heart the words of a mentor teacher, who told him, “‘Mr. Stevens, the kids won’t care what you know until they know that you care.’ There’s students that have great potential but they just don’t see it — they have challenges growing up in the city, in their homes,” he said.

Stevens thought a lot about Ms. Griswold, the Kenderton librarian during his elementary-school years who told him he was capable of amazing things. That was the first time someone outside his family believed in him that way, Stevens said, and it made him dream bigger.

“I wanted to make that kind of difference for students,” said Stevens. He did — as a math teacher and as a track coach at Vaux, then, beginning in 2010, at Frankford High.

Stevens, who’s one of a rare group — nationally, just 4% of teachers are Black men — takes his job seriously.

He’s the kind of teacher who always goes above and beyond — giving up lunches to tutor students, waiting at bus stops with them to make sure they’re safe, reaching out to parents on weekends, writing math-related lyrics to “Rapper’s Delight” to engage classes, telling kids who aren’t comfortable asking for help in public to contact him privately for help.

In 2011, he won a prestigious Lindback Award for distinguished teaching.

The work has felt heavy at times. He’s wept at multiple student funerals, and there have been some young people he’s been unable to reach, despite his best efforts. But it’s also been inspiring, said Stevens.

“Some of the students I’ve taught have been my heroes, when I realize what they’ve been through,” he said. And his career longevity has given him the gift of being able to see his long-term influence, too.

On an El trip from his home in West Philadelphia to Frankford, Stevens dropped his glasses. A man sitting nearby picked them up, looking at Stevens with recognition in his eyes.

It was a former student, “one of my biggest problems” from his second year of teaching. The student, now grown, had struggled, been incarcerated, but remembered a teacher who didn’t give up on him, and had arrived at a much better place, raising a daughter, holding down a job in construction.

“He said, ‘Stay encouraged, Mr. Stevens, they’re blessed to have you,’” Stevens said. “He said, ‘You may not see the impact that you’re making, but you’re making one.’”

Stevens, who is 61, still relishes the work.

But he came through some health challenges recently, and it seemed to be the right time to step away from teaching, to spend more time with his wife and family, and his church work — he’s a deacon and a minister-in-training at Sharon Baptist Church.

His final school year hasn’t been the one he expected as damaged asbestos closed Frankford in April, with classes shifting online. Grades are already finalized, graduation is Monday, and Tuesday is students’ final day.

But Stevens is going out on the same note he came in on.

“I told the students, ‘Here’s the thing: If you’re wise, you will stay with this class until the last day. I promise you, I will give you everything I’ve got,’” he said.