Brookline School Committee Member Abruptly Resigns

BROOKLINE, MA — A School Committee member elected last year has stepped down suddenly to take a job, school committee members confirmed to Patch.

Sharon Abramowitz, the mother of children at the Driscoll School, garnered the most votes last May during town elections, securing herself a safe seat on the School Committee. Abramowitz, a global health advocate, is trained as an anthropologist, sociologist, and epidemiologist with credentials from Harvard University, Johns Hopkins.

On Aug. 13 she resigned after she was offered a position as an Associate Professor of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong. She said she will be working to integrate social science into epidemic response globally.

As of Monday, there has been no official communication from the School Committee to the town about the resignation.

Although her time there doesn't begin until next summer, she and her family have moved to Vermont, where she will be working on supporting her children with the hybrid/remote learning plan, "while trying not to lose my job at UNICEF," she said in a statement on social media.

"I have not taken lightly my decision to break my promise to serve out my term - I am crashingly sad that I have had to leave," she said. "But very simply - COVID changed our family's outlooks and priorities in ways that we could never have expected just six months ago. Serving on school committee this year has been one of the hardest things that I have ever done, and one of the greatest honors and privileges of my life, and I loved every minute of it."

Abramowitz said she is confident that the district is in a good place, with capable stewards.

"I am leaving Brookline with an outstanding, smart, fierce, and outspoken school committee, an excellent interim district superintendent, a cohort of committed and passionate principals, and the best educators in the country," she said, imploring anyone who felt the urge to apply to fill her seat.

She and her family are planning to return to Brookline in a few years, she said. She thanked her supporters, and wished the town well.

And her parting remark? "Also, Brookline needs to become a city."

Patch has reached out to Suzanne Federspiel who chairs the School Committee for comment.

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