The Alamance-Burlington school system suspended 57 employees in 2025, based on materials that ABSS has furnished in response to a public records request by The Alamance News (see accompanying chart).
All but 15 of the employees who were suspended in 2025 were ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing, according to school officials.
“Suspensions with pay are not considered disciplinary action at the district [level],” ABSS chief communications officer Emily-Lynn Adkins told The Alamance News two weeks ago. “This process is used for investigatory purposes and allows the district time to investigate for any reason. The staff members with an asterisk by their name did no wrongdoing and were not disciplined as a result of the suspension with pay.”
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Another 66 ABSS employees were dismissed last year; 57 were substitute teachers who had failed to complete the minimum of six teaching assignments required to remain on the list of active subs. No employees were demoted in 2025. Approximately 380 employees resigned or retired from the school system last year, based on the employee records that ABSS furnished in response to the newspaper’s public records request.
The newspaper sought to inspect the personnel records of all ABSS employees who were the subject of dismissals, demotions, suspensions, and/or separations in 2025.
The record of employee suspensions furnished by ABSS listed no reason for any of the suspensions; nor does state law require school officials to do so. (The school system previously furnished notices of dismissals for several employees who were initially suspended and then terminated.)
Principal initially suspended with pay, then transferred to unpaid suspension and later fired
Robert Dail, 36, then-principal of B.E. Jordan Elementary School, was initially suspended with pay from December 6, 2024 until March 14, 2025 and then transferred to suspension without pay from March 17, 2025 until June 24, 2025, when school board members voted to terminate him, based on a list of employee dismissals previously furnished by ABSS.
Dail had been charged in December 2024 with allegedly attempting to defraud Nationwide Insurance by submitting falsified and forged invoices to the insurer on December 28, 2023, state Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey announced at the time. Dail had been charged with four felonies: insurance fraud; attempting to obtain property by false pretense; and common law uttering, or passing any false, forged, or counterfeit document.
The criminal case was not listed as a basis for the suspension in the materials that ABSS furnished.
In August 2025, Dail, who appeared to have no prior criminal record in North Carolina, was allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of misdemeanor “accessing computers,” according to his court file. He was ordered to complete 18 months of supervised probation; complete 100 hours of community service; and to pay $1,155.23 in restitution, court costs, and related fees.
Dail had been employed with ABSS since August 5, 2019.
ABSS had also suspended a now-former social studies teacher at Turrentine Middle School from December 14, 2024 until January 22, 2025 after he was charged with misdemeanor assault on a student on school property in December 2024. That charge was not referenced in the materials that ABSS furnished in response to the newspaper’s request for employee suspensions in 2025.
The misdemeanor assault charge against Derek Kit-Son Tang was subsequently voluntarily dismissed as part of a plea agreement on March 28, 2025. No details about the terms of the agreement were included in Tang’s court file.
Tang was originally hired as a substitute teacher for ABSS in August 2014 and as a permanent teacher at Turrentine in August 2019, according to documents that the school system furnished in response to an earlier public records request by The Alamance News. He was suspended with pay, effective Friday, December 13, 2024 and resigned on January 22, 2025, based on a semi-monthly personnel report that school board members approved at the time. Tang’s final salary was $50,682, according to ABSS.
Another employee had been suspended about two months prior to being arrested in June 2025.
Nick Anders, 52, a career and technical education teacher and longtime leader of the award-winning Future Farmers of America chapter at Southern High School, was charged with felony indecent liberties with a Southern High School student and misdemeanor solicitation of prostitution on June 4, 2025.
Anders was subsequently charged with felony indecent liberties with a student and misdemeanor sexual battery on June 9 of last year. Arrest warrants filed by investigators with the Graham police department allege that the offenses occurred in March 2025 and May 2025. Both cases remain pending in the Alamance County court system.
Anders had been employed with ABSS since January 3, 2005 and resigned from Southern High School on May 30, 2025, according to school officials. The materials furnished by ABSS give no reason for his resignation.
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Several other employees suspended twice but cleared of wrongdoing
Several other employees who faced multiple suspensions were ultimately cleared of any alleged or suspected wrongdoing.
Terry Byrd, Jr. 46, a science teacher and coach at Southern Middle School, was suspended without pay from March 10 until March 12, 2025. He was also suspended with pay from April 24, 2025 until June 12, 2025 and is no longer employed with ABSS, based on the materials that the school system furnished earlier this month in response to the newspaper’s public records request.
Robin Fuller, an assistant in the Exceptional Children’s program at Newlin Elementary School, was suspended from November 20, 2024 through January 15, 2025 and again on May 19, 2025, after she was reassigned to Haw River Elementary School. Though no end date is listed for Fuller’s second suspension, the documents furnished by ABSS show that she was cleared of any wrongdoing.
Thelma Gardiner, an online learning facilitator at Eastern High School, was suspended without pay for one day, from August 18 until August 19, 2025; she was suspended without pay from October 1 until November 13, 2025 but was cleared of wrongdoing, according to ABSS.
Elizabeth Lee, an English teacher at Williams High School was suspended without pay from February 10 to February 12, 2025 and suspended with pay for one month, from May 12, 2025 until June 12, 2025. Lee, who had been employed with ABSS since August 1, 2001, has since resigned from her position at Williams High School.
Eric Ray, a technician in the technology division, was suspended with pay from November 25, 2024 until January 25, 2025, when he was transferred to suspension without pay until January 28 of last year. He has been employed with ABSS since November 1, 2017 and continues to remain employed as a technician in the administration’s technology division.
Three other employees suspended, then terminated
While most of the suspended employees were later cleared of any wrongdoing, Dail, the former principal at B.E. Jordan Elementary School, was among a total of four ABSS employees who were initially suspended and then terminated.
Sabrina Crump, a receptionist at Broadview Middle School, had been employed with ABSS for 18 years when she was suspended for 11 days, starting September 11, 2025, and later notified that she would be recommended for dismissal after violating multiple ABSS policies, based on her notice of dismissal that school officials previously furnished to the newspaper.
An instructional assistant, Amber Fields, was terminated after school officials received a report that she had been charged with simple assault in connection with a domestic dispute which apparently occurred at her home in Mebane during the spring of 2025, according to a dismissal notice she received in July 2025, which school officials previously furnished in response to the newspaper’s public records request.
There is no record of the charge on file in Alamance County’s court system, though allegations of assault and ongoing marital strife are mentioned in Fields’ complaint for a divorce, child custody, and a temporary restraining order that remain pending in district court.
Fields was initially suspended with pay from April 21, 2025 through the remainder of the 2024-25 school year.
ABSS officials ultimately concluded that her actions had violated the school system’s employee conduct standards, school board members voted to accept the administration’s recommendation to dismiss Fields at a special-called board meeting on July 24, 2025. She had been employed with ABSS since December 18, 2017.
Southeast High School teacher Matthew LaFuria’s employment contract was not renewed for an additional year when it came up for discussion during a closed session at a special-called board meeting on July 24, 2025.
A history teacher and cross country coach at Southeast High School, he had been employed with ABSS since August 18, 2023. The notice of dismissal that ABSS previously furnished to the newspaper gave no reason for the decision to not renew LaFuria’s contract.
Though the state’s public education laws generally provide confidentiality for the personnel files of school employees, certain portions of their personnel files are considered public record and thus subject to inspection.
A provision in the state’s public education laws provides that the following information is public record for each employee: Name; age; original date of employment; terms of employment contract; current position/title; salary; date of any increase or decrease in salary; date and type of any promotion, demotion, transfer, suspension, and/or separation; and the date and general description of the reasons for any promotion.
The same portion of state law also specifies that each dismissal, suspension, or demotion for disciplinary reasons is a public record, subject to inspection.
Further, if the disciplinary action was a dismissal, a copy of the written notice of the decision of the board, setting forth specific acts or omissions that were the basis of the dismissal, must be furnished in response to a public records request, as outlined within North Carolina’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
