Embattled CPS official to leave district
A Columbia Public Schools administrator has resigned to take a job elsewhere.
Kevin Brown, the CPS assistant superintendent for secondary education, will work his last day Friday, according to an email sent to employees. Brown has worked in that role since 2016.
“Please join us in wishing Dr. Brown well in his new endeavor,” district leaders said in the email. “The district will immediately begin the process of determining next steps with regard to the assistant superintendent for secondary education position.”
Brown has 12 years of experience in administration at the secondary education level, according to his bio on the CPS website. He has also been a high school and middle school teacher and a college instructor.
Brown remains embroiled in lawsuits brought by two married high school administrators. Rachel Henderson and Andrew McCarthy both claim Brown, who is black, discriminated against them because of their race and passed McCarthy up for a job as principal at Hickman High School. Henderson and McCarthy are white.
The discrimination lawsuits claim Brown punished the two after Henderson complained about Brown’s behavior in passing McCarthy up for a promotion and sending him to a different high school.
CPS has denied the claims in court filings. The cases are ongoing.
The district is also being sued for racial discrimination in an unrelated suit. West Middle School Principal Melita Walker claims in her lawsuit that she discriminated against when she was passed up for a job at Hickman High School by an all-white hearing panel.
Brown has taken a job in the Waukegan, Illinois, school district as director of teaching and learning for grades K-8, according to an article on the Chicago Tribune website.
Brown becomes at least the sixth top administrator to leave CPS since 2017. Deputy superintendent Dana Clippard and head of elementary education Ben Tilley retired at the end of the year. In 2017, chief financial officer Linda Quinley and head of human resources Brian Kurz took jobs in different school districts. Quinley’s replacement, Anna Munson, left CPS in March 2018 after St. Louis County prosecutors charged her with felony stealing.
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