By STEVE FREKER
MALDEN — After a year’s absence from the halls of Malden High School, former long-time Principal Dana Brown is planning a return.
Brown is a finalist for school superintendent, one of four candidates initially selected with interim Superintendent Dr. Charles Grandson added as a fifth finalist.
Moving forward, the five remaining candidates will be interviewed publicly in the coming weeks and the timetable calls for a new superintendent to be named by April 1.
Brown served as Malden High School principal from 2003 to 2016, resigning last June at the end of the 2015-2016 school year. He took a new position as executive director of high school and Community Partnerships at Bunker Hill Community College (BHCC) in Charlestown near the end of last summer.
Malden High is one of many schools in the region with a vibrant educational alliance with BHCC.
Grandson was named interim superintendent 10 months ago to take the reins from former Superintendent David DeRuosi who is now Saugus’ superintendent.
A 5-4 School Committee vote last Thursday got Grandson included on the superintendent finalist list.
The other finalists are East Haven, Conn., Superintendent Portia Bonner, Holbrook Superintendent Patricia Lally and Somerville High School Principal John Oteri.
The finalists were selected from an initial pool of 14 candidates. Eight candidates were interviewed privately by the search committee earlier this month and the finalists named Thursday.
Oteri has been principal at Somerville High since 2012 and worked in that school system as an assistant principal and teacher since 1999. Lally has been superintendent of the Holbrook Public Schools since 2013. Bonner has been superintendent in East Haven for the past three years.
Grandson served as high school principal in Springfield and as an administrator in New York and also in the Boston Public Schools before taking the interim superintendent position in Malden last May.