GREENBURGH – The Greenburgh Board of Education has fired schools Superintendent Ronald O. Ross, nearly four months after placing him on paid administrative leave.
Ross was sidelined in May, after a principal, the human resources director, two guidance counselors and four teachers accused him of discrimination in a lawsuit and creating a hostile workplace which was often bad or unpleasant with harassment and filled with racial, religious and sexual slurs. An interim superintendent has been in place while the board investigated allegations that he was verbally abusive to employees, called them names, humiliated them in public and made it impossible to do their jobs. The suit accuses Ross, who is black, of calling other black employees “Oreos,” “an Aunt Jemima,” “an Uncle Tom,” a “California raisin” and “sellouts,” among other slurs.
As the previous superintendent of the Mount Vernon schools and Roosevelt schools on Long Island, Ronald O. Ross was brought in with fanfare to change failing schools and did so, but left before his contracts were up in both places. A second suit was filed against Ross last week that echoed those accusations but said they happened while he was principal at Woodlands High School.
The board voted Monday to terminate his contract, effective immediately. It put out a statement Wednesday saying that it “will meet in the near future to discuss the search process for the hiring of the next superintendent of schools.” The board, which appointed administrator Tahira DuPree Chase as interim superintendent, said they had made “unsuccessful efforts” to address the issues involved. Chase is the district’s assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. Ross, whose contract runs through 2017, was paid $235,266 a year.
