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Fired administrators suing Buffalo School Board

The Buffalo School Board is being formally notified Monday that two high-ranking administrators fired a month ago aren't going away quietly.

On April 2, the board came out of a long closed-door session and voted unanimously to fire Yamilette Williams as chief of curriculum, assessment and instruction and Faith Morrison Alexander as a chief of school leadership. The board voted they didn't have the state certification for their positions and shifted them from suspended to fired without severance pay.

Their lawyer says that isn't justified because their certification covered what they did under the supervision of Superintendent Pamela Brown.

Now, the two say their professional images have been destroyed without good reason and they deserve millions of dollars in compensation.

"I don't think the board had proper cause to fire them. I believe it was the most imprudent thing to do," said Lawyer Raymond Kot.

"I believe it was a political maneuver and I do believe it was designed to make Doctor Brown appear worse than she is and, in effect, create a worse climate for her."

Kot says the firings were precipitated by Board Member Carl Paladino and are part of a plan to dump the superintendent.  Kot says the paperwork for Morrison Alexander will be served on the board today and for Williams tomorrow.
 

Mike Desmond is one of Western New York’s most experienced reporters, having spent nearly a half-century covering the region for newspapers, television stations and public radio. He has been with WBFO and its predecessor, WNED-AM, since 1988. As a reporter for WBFO, he has covered literally thousands of stories involving education, science, business, the environment and many other issues. Mike has been a long-time theater reviewer for a variety of publications and was formerly a part-time reporter for The New York Times.