LITCHFIELD — Regional School Unit 4 Superintendent Katy Grondin is retiring at the end of the school year after spending the past 39 years as a teacher, mentor and administrator.

Her successor is Marco Aliberti, the principal of Oak Hill High School in Wales for nine of the past 10 years with the district. He has been an educator for 25 years and is originally from Auburn.

“I am very excited to continue to serve the communities of Litchfield, Sabattus and Wales in my new role,” Aliberti wrote in an email. “For Katy, I appreciate her hard work and dedication to the RSU and wish her the best in retirement.”

Grondin, whose contract is ending, is a longtime Auburn resident who graduated from Edward Little High School in the 1980s and spent 31 years of her career in Auburn. In the early years, she was an elementary school teacher in Clinton, and then at Fairview Elementary and Sherwood Heights Elementary in Auburn she went from a second grade teacher to assistant principal then principal.

Students have always been important to her, Grondin said, even choosing an abbreviated version of “I love kids” for her license plate.

“Throughout my career it was important for me to end (up) with children around me,” she said.

Her leadership path continued as assistant superintendent of the Auburn School Department before being chosen in a national search to replace Superintendent Tom Morrill in 2011.

Grondin remained in the position until June 2020, after resigning seven months earlier in what she said at the time was her personal decision and after a three-year process to get a new Edward Little High School built.

“When the community overwhelmingly approved the project in June of 2019, it was a moment of deep pride and gratitude,” Grondin said. “Walking into the new building and seeing the incredible learning environment our students now have — the modern classrooms, the beautiful auditorium, the central courtyard, the expanded LRTC programs, and finally having all athletic fields on the school site — it fills me with pride and a sense of accomplishment that I will carry with me long after retirement.”

Grondin went on to the role of assistant superintendent of Augusta schools for two years until she was hired as the superintendent at RSU 4 in June 2022.

Her most immediate challenge was another community referendum — this time for a school addition, except there was no state funding approved and the referendum overwhelmingly failed. Just getting a school budget passed has been a challenge, with the past two years requiring multiple referendums to pass it.

Longtime RSU 4 Director Robert Gayton of Sabattus offered praise for Grondin’s handling of all the challenges they faced.

“The one thing that has impressed me is Katy’s knowledge of how schools work and what is needed to lead the RSU through some challenging times,” Gayton said in an email. “Her commitment to community communication and her willingness to listen to all stakeholders has definitely helped with communication among our community leaders.”

Over the years Grondin has been recognized by her peers with numerous awards and accolades, including National Distinguished Principal of the Year in 2007 from the Maine Principals’ Association and the Outstanding Leadership Award from the Maine School Superintendents Association in 2019.

In her mind, education is largely the same as it was when she started.

“I taught using whole language which was very much about students learning from reading,” she recalled, “then it kind of shifted to going to phonics and being more direct … but the dynamics of the classroom, which is engaging students in learning, hasn’t changed.”

While events such as 9/11 and the Columbine High School shooting impacted the way Americans think about school safety and related issues, Grondin said the COVID-19 pandemic had a profound effect on education, calling it a defining period. She said it is indicative of how strong and adaptive educators are.

The pandemic had lasting effects, she said, “particularly in the areas of mental health, social isolation and students’ ability to connect with others. Each time our community faces a new tragedy, we are reminded not only of our vulnerability, but also of the essential role schools play in providing stability, care, and hope.”

It is the connections and the relationships Grondin said she will always remember.

“Just going to the supermarket and seeing a student that I had in school,” she said, “and we know each other and just seeing them be successful. Or a student I had in class, now their children are coming through.”

And besides those, there are all the people she’s worked with over nearly four decades.

As for her immediate future? It’s back to the days when she had summers off as a young teacher, Grondin said. “I went to the lake … went to friends’ houses and checked in with family. That’s what I’m going to do this summer is really just get back to that time where my summers were my summers to do what I want.”

Throw in a little travel to Banff National Park in Canada and it will be what school board Chairwoman Nicole Russell refers to as a well-earned chapter of retirement.

“For nearly four decades, she has dedicated herself to excellence for her staff and students,” Russell wrote in an email. “Personally, I am beyond grateful for her steady guidance and insightful counsel during my time on the board. Her patience, experience, and belief in collaboration has provided a strong foundation, and I will carry her lessons with me always. I cannot thank her enough and she will truly be missed.”