AUBURN — The School Committee is set to vote next week on whether to hire a veteran school administrator as the district’s next superintendent.
Cornelia Brown
Cornelia “Connie” Brown has worked for more than 20 years as a superintendent in Maine and New Hampshire, including 13 years for the Augusta School Department, which she left in 2012.
Auburn School Committee Chairwoman Karen Mathieu wrote in an email Friday that she could not comment on the nomination because she had signed a confidentiality agreement.
She will answer questions after Wednesday’s vote, if Brown is hired, Mathieu said.
Brown also declined to comment until after the vote, which is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday via videoconference, accessible from the district’s web page.
Brown, who was 55 years old in May 2018, has been a teacher and a principal, and she has a Ph.D in educational leadership, according to a report in the Kennebec Journal.
She was hired then to serve as interim superintendent for the Winthrop School District.
The Kennebec Journal reported at the time that Brown was tasked with balancing a $1.5 million budget shortfall and mending a “frayed” relationship between educators and the Winthrop School Committee.
She told the Kennebec Journal that she would “start by doing a lot of listening.”
Her job in Winthrop ends June 30. James Hodgkin will take over as superintendent July 1.
According to other news reports, Brown was the executive director of the Maine School Management Association from 2013 to 2016.
After that, she served as interim superintendent for SAU 56 in Somersworth, N.H. She was hired in May 2017 to serve one year but left in December 2017 “by mutual agreement,” according to Foster’s Daily Democrat.
If hired by the Auburn School Committee, Brown would replace Superintendent Katy Grondin, who resigned in November effective June 30.
Grondin has been superintendent in Auburn since 2011. Before that, she was a teacher, a principal and an assistant superintendent. She has served 31 years in the Auburn School Department and was named a Principal of the Year.
She said in November that it was time for a change.
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