by Garth Meyer
The start of the 2024-25 school year Wednesday featured a new Redondo Union High School principal.
Marvin Brown, the former principal of Lincoln Elementary, succeeds Anthony Bridi, who served as the head of RUHS for three years.
School board president Raymur Flinn made the announcement July 15. The board considered 15 applicants, with Brown receiving the recommendation of two interview panels. Superintendent Nicole Wesley made the hire earlier in July.
“Marvin is one of our few administrators who have served at all three levels of the district,” Wesley said. “Elementary, middle and high school. That helps as the students matriculate up. Mr. Brown has earned this position. Marvin was hands down the first choice.”
Preparing for the new school year, Brown worked to make sure all hiring was completed, student schedules were set before registration and staff was up to date on training.
He first joined the district in 2010 as a high school special education teacher. In 2019, Brown was named an assistant principal at the high school, where he oversaw special education, athletics, career and technical education and world languages.
He then became principal at Lincoln Elementary in 2022.
Brown’s sports background includes playing strong safety for the Northwestern University football team, the co-Big Ten-champions in 2000 (a loss to Drew Brees and Purdue kept the title shared).
Purdue went to the Rose Bowl and Brown and Northwestern to the Alamo Bowl.
“I have great memories of my time (in college). I’m still in touch with a lot of those guys. I got the best of both worlds,” Brown said, of attending a top academic university in a major athletic conference.
Originally from Pueblo, Colo., his mother was a special education teacher and his father a railroad engineer.
Brown majored in Communications Studies at Northwestern, then spent five years working in commercial real estate in Chicago, before going back to Pueblo to get into teaching.
He began as a coach at his old high school, an assistant for football, and head basketball coach. He got his teaching credential from the University of Colorado.
“Education has been in my blood,” Brown said. “After going to school and living in Evanston (Illinois), it was an easy adjustment to make to work in Chicago. I’m a people person at heart, there’s a common element between (teaching) and real estate, but I didn’t find I was making a difference. I wanted to feel like I was making an impact more than just making money.”
In Pueblo, first with an emergency teaching credential, he started his classroom career as a substitute, then as a high school special education teacher.
“The connections you make, the impact you make on students and the impact they have on you. It’s absolutely fulfilling,” Brown said.
What was the biggest game he ever played in in the Big 10?
At the horseshoe against Ohio State, he said, both teams ranked in the Top 20, an ESPN Saturday night game, Brown starting.
His proudest moment as an assistant principal at RUHS he said was acting as advisor for the Black Student Union.
“Being in education, making a difference in kids, building relationships and seeing outcomes from that,” Brown said.
He started as RUHS principal officially July 1.
“Mr. Brown really values building relationships. He really values other voices and seeks input. To build a culture where kids find their purpose,” Supt. Wesley said. “He just gets it. He’s relatable, staff feels like he is someone they can talk to.”
A longtime leader, the RUHS principal job is the latest role for the one-time student body president of his middle school.
Brown and his wife have two sons in the Redondo district, eighth grade and sixth grade.
Anthony Bridi is now the principal at South Bay Adult School. ER
