The former principal of Eastlawn Elementary School is asking a superior court judge to reverse the Alamance-Burlington school board’s decision this spring not to renew her employment contract and to order ABSS to reinstate her to her former position, or a similar one.
Syeda Smith-Williams was originally hired as an assistant principal at Graham High School, effective August 1, 2023, based on a personnel report that the school board voted to approve during a special-called meeting on July 11, 2023.
The school board subsequently hired Smith-Williams in February 2024 as the principal at Eastlawn Elementary School, according to the personnel report that the board voted to approve at the time, which listed the effective date for her new position as “to be determined.” She was notified of the school board’s decision not to renew her contract on May 29 of this year, according to the petition that Smith-Williams filed in superior court in late June.
According to her petition, she was notified of her nonrenewal via a “punitive memo” that had been hand-delivered on March 2, 2026, which Smith-Williams alleges was the result of “an extensive, targeted internal investigation designed solely to discredit [her] and label her untruthful….”
Smith-Williams claims that “the sudden movement to” not renew her contract as principal of Eastlawn Elementary School initially stemmed from an encounter with an “aggressive pre-K guardian” who had threatened to run her over, “drove her vehicle aggressively” toward the principal, “utilizing a motor vehicle as a weapon in the student pickup line. The alleged perpetrator isn’t identified by name in the petition for judicial review.
The then-principal contends that she fulfilled her statutory duties “by filing a formal police report, preserving video surveillance logs, and notifying the School Resource Office,” as well as the school system’s administration of the incident.
“The perpetrator of this act of workplace violence was known to the Alamance-Burlington school district, as the family had already been involuntarily removed from Newlin Elementary School and transferred to Eastlawn due to the guardians’ prior aggressive assaults against staff,” Smith-Williams alleges.
The former principal further claims that ABSS failed to provide her “with a place of employment free from recognized hazards that are likely to cause serious injury or physical harm to her,” which Smith-Williams contends is required under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of North Carolina.
Alleged retaliation for reporting ‘workplace violence’
Her subsequent reports about the encounter with the “aggressive pre-K guardian,” Smith-Williams alleges in her petition, ultimately prompted the school system’s administrators to launch an internal investigation that she claims was intentionally aimed at discrediting her.
According to her petition, the “punitive memo” Smith-Williams received on March 2 of this year cited one of eight standards – “Standard 7: Micropolitical Leadership” – that the state Department of Instruction (DPI) has developed for K-12 public school executives, which includes principals.
That standard states that “school executives will build systems and relationships that utilize the staff’s diversity, encourage constructive ideological conflict in order to leverage staff expertise, power and influence to realize the school’s vision for success,” among other practices meant to foster collaborative leadership within a school.
Smith-Williams claims in her petition that the March 2 memo “directly [condemned her] for high-impact decisions affecting families that were not based on verified facts, resulting in disproportionate responses, and inaccurate or incomplete communication creating reputational and liability risks for the District.”
The petitioner further asserts that the March 2 memo made clear she was to file no additional complaints related to her safety, based on a sentence in the memo, which stated: “Expected behaviors include thoroughly verifying facts before escalating issues, ensuring responses are proportional and consistent with district guidance, and demonstrating sound judgment, fairness, and emotional regulation in high-stakes situations.”
Former principal alleges she was penalized for hiring visiting international faculty
Smith-Williams asserts that she was given three weeks to correct any alleged deficiencies – which she contends was a compressed and arbitrary timeline that failed to provide sufficient time to make improvements. Smith-Williams followed her objections to the alleged lack of due process by filing an administrative grievance with the ABSS human resources department on April 8, 2026, to which she claims she received no response, according to the petition she has filed in superior court.
Instead, Smith-Williams received a notice of contract nonrenewal on April 29, 2026, which she claims further penalized her for allegedly violating “Standard 4: Human Resource Leadership” within DPI’s standards for school executives by relying heavily on visiting international faculty (VIF) in recruiting teachers to Eastlawn Elementary School.
“This followed a discussion…wherein Superintendent Dr. [Aaron] Fleming stripped away professional artifice, explicitly stating to [the] Petitioner in a racially offensive and discriminatory manner: ‘Who wants to have a funny talking teacher?’” Smith-Williams alleges in her petition.
The former Eastlawn principal counters that her approach to recruiting visiting international faculty “was a historical fixture of the dual-language school” and had been praised by the school system’s human resources director on her annual job performance evaluation in June 2025.
For the 2025-26 school year that ended in June, ABSS had 92 visiting international teachers, who were hired through Participate Learning (“Participate”), an educational consulting firm based in Chapel Hill, according to a presentation that the school board heard at its May 12, 2026 work session. Those teachers are hired on J-1 visas (a non-immigrant exchange visa for individuals who are approved to work and/or study in the U.S. for an initial term of up to three years, with an option to renew the visa up to two years) and typically teach foreign languages and “global immersion” classes, ABSS human resources director Dr. Yolanda Anderson told the board in May.
The 92 international teachers that ABSS hired for the 2025-26 school year represented a modest increase from the previous, 2024-25 school year, when ABSS hired 86 teachers through Participate, Anderson said during her May 12 presentation to the school board. By comparison, ABSS hired 73 international teachers through Participate for the 2023-24 school year, the school system’s HR director said.
Allegations of racial animus
Moreover, Smith-Williams, who is black, alleges that she is the victim of “severe disparate treatment based upon race.” She claims that administration’s “exhaustive investigation into the incident with a violent and enraged parent [was] exclusively restricted to this single white family”; no witness statements were gathered; and “multiple white female principals” at other low-performing schools with “severe declines in academic proficiency” and higher student disciplinary problems had their contracts renewed with Smith-Williams was “uniquely pushed out.”
The former Eastlawn principal asserts that her students successfully met the state’s annual standards for academic growth – and was “out of 10 low-performing schools in the district, the only school to meet state academic growth status” – and that her internal metrics “showed quadrupled growth” on end-of-grade tests in reading, science, and math from 2023 until 2026.
Among the other allegations that Smith-Williams outlines in her petition is that the “truncated” term (two years and 4-½ months) of her employment contract with ABSS hadn’t conformed to a state law requiring K-12 public school principals to be employed on two- or four-year contracts that end on June 30 of the final year of the contract.
“Because the contract itself violated the mandatory statutory parameters, the nonrenewal action is built upon an unlawful foundation, rendering the entire proceeding per se arbitrary, capricious, and an error of law,” Smith-Williams asserts.
Smith-Williams is asking a superior court judge to: enter an order reversing the school board’s decision on May 27 of this year to not renew her employment contract; compel ABSS to reinstate her as principal of Eastlawn Elementary School or in a comparable position for a contractual term that complies with state law; and order ABSS to “restore and pay the forfeited North Carolina Principal Growth Bonus earned through three consecutive years of certified [academic] growth status.”
The former principal is also seeking recovery of back pay that she claims she’s owed, restoration of her employment benefits, and an unspecified award for compensatory damages for alleged “unlawful, retaliatory, and discriminatory employment actions.” Smith-Williams is being represented by attorney L. Nicole Patino of Greensboro.
A response had not been filed for the school board by press time Wednesday night.
