Former Andover High School Principal Caitlin Brown will welcome back students and families at the start of the school year and said her decision to resign Wednesday came after “considerable reflection.”
“This was not an easy decision to make, but it is what is best for me personally and professionally,” Brown said in a note to the school community. “Working with the students of Andover has brought me tremendous joy over the last seven years…I will miss seeing the students each morning.”
Brown’s resignation comes just four weeks before the start of the school year. The Andover Education Association, which represents Andover teachers, said her resignation is part of an ongoing “administrative leadership crisis” under Superintendent Magda Party, who started at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year. Administrators have also left High Plain, Bancroft, and South Elementary School in the past two years.
“I recognize the importance of a smooth transition and will be present at the start of the school year to welcome our students and staff back.,” Brown said. “I will work with Dr. Parvey and building administrators to facilitate a smooth transition. I look forward to continuing my support of the Andover Public Schools as a parent and community member.”
The union, which announced Brown’s resignation before Andover Public Schools made the news public, is locked in contract negotiations with the district for teachers and instructional assistants.
APS said in a statement Wednesday it would begin a search for a new principal as soon as possible, and that Parvey had supported Brown’s decision to step down. The statement also disputed AEA’s characterization of Brown’s resignation.
AEA’s statement said Brown had accepted a position in another school district, but neither Brown or APS’s statements said where she was headed.
Brown was also a key member of the Andover High School Building Committee, offering insight into the current school’s day-to-day operations and challenges, as well as helping develop the educational plan that the new school’s design is based on.
Brown finished her third year as principal in June after four years as an assistant principal and served on the Andover High School Building Committee. Before that, she taught social studies in Foxborough Public Schools, where she was also the athletic director and the varsity soccer coach.
Brown lives in Andover and has two school-age daughters. In April, she told Andover News she thought she wanted to be a lawyer, but after working as a substitute teacher in Foxborough, she found her calling and ended up in the district for 12 years.
“I became a teacher because I love kids,” she said. “And I still love these kids.”
Caitlin Brown’s Note To AHS Students and Families
To Andover High School students and families,
After considerable reflection, I formally submitted my resignation to Dr. Parvey this afternoon. This was not an easy decision to make, but it is what is best for me personally and professionally. Working with the students of Andover has brought me tremendous joy over the last seven years. The students of Andover High School have consistently demonstrated academic curiosity, empathy for others, and the reflectiveness to be successful. I will miss seeing the students each morning.
I appreciate the opportunity provided to me to be a leader of a school with such a dedicated and talented group of students, educators, and staff. I recognize the importance of a smooth transition and will be present at the start of the school year to welcome our students and staff back.
I will work with Dr. Parvey and building administrators to facilitate a smooth transition. I look forward to continuing my support of the Andover Public Schools as a parent and community member. I wish Andover High School continued success in the future. Thank you all for your support.
Caitlin Brown
Principal
Andover High School
Six principals resigned in 13 years.
Think there might be an issue here?
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and 6 principals in 13 years says there is a big problem. And the buck stops at the School Committee who has created the culture that has produced the revolving door of principals at our high school. This revolving door in who is the high school’s principal makes it impossible for solid educational policies that a really good principal can put in place to take root since the revolving door means that before educational philosophy, policies, curricula and means for staff improvements a new principal brings to the job can take hold, the principal is gone and someone new has to be brought in who will, if good, have their own agenda and style of leadership and their own educational philosophy that will push the reset button on what their predecessor (in this case, 6 predecessors over just 13 years) started to do. Leadership discontinuities with this regularity at a high school is a sign of a deep problem in school system governance, in this case, Andover School Department’s governance over the past dozen or so years. The buck stops at the Andover School Committee.