CHAMPAIGN — The first Black, female superintendent of Champaign Unit 4 schools has been pushed out after four years.
The majority of the school board voted Thursday to approve a separation agreement with Superintendent Shelia Boozer. The move received vocal disapproval from a largely Black audience of parents and civil rights leaders.
“Your leadership as superintendent of Champaign Unit 4 schools has been transformative. You didn’t just lead. You made us feel like we belong,” parent and Booker T. Washington STEM Academy Principal Cessily Thomas told Boozer.
(Boozer was not present at the meeting, but Thomas said she knew “Dr. B” was watching remotely.)
Boozer was hired as superintendent in 2021. She led the district in controversial efforts to further desegregate elementary schools and replace a popular principal. Meanwhile, division on the school board prompted three members to resign.
Clarissa Nickerson Fourman started a petition last year urging Boozer to resign. Fourman has since changed her mind and thinks a previous school board president directed the out-of-town hire wrong about who to talk to.
“That led her to, you know, be offensive to the community, and to keep blocks there and to protect her staff,” Fourman said. ” And that’s how she went about being a superintendent. And I feel like they never gave her the ability to be the superintendent she could have been without that bad intel.”
In April, voters elected a majority of school board members who said they would replace Boozer.
One of those new members is Tony Bruno, who is now school board president. He told the crowd Thursday that his goal in voting out the superintendent was transparency.
“When I decided to get into this election, I decided to make it really clear what I thought should happen, and I hope it’s not coming as a surprise to anybody that we find ourselves here today,” he said.
Bruno voted for the separation agreement alongside board members Christy Arnold, Betsy Holder, Amy Armstrong and Fatima Ahmed. Justin Michael Hendrix and Grace Kang voted against it.
After the vote, the same majority voted to install Executive Director of Facilities and Services Dan Casillas as acting superintendent.
Rev. Evelyn Underwood helped desegregate Urbana schools as a parent in the 1960’s and is a former Urbana school board member. She said she wants the interim superintendent to have more expertise in academics.
“They have people who are qualified, who are cabinet members, but they went down [below the cabinet]. Nothing against the gentleman,” Underwood added.
The board started the search process for the next superintendent at a previous meeting by directing staff to send out a call for search firms.
When Boozer was hired superintendent, all four of the biggest school districts in east-central Illinois were led by Black women for the first time. Three are now in the search process for new superintendents. Danville Superintendent Alicia Geddis was also fired this year, because she worked remotely for months after receiving white supremacist threats. Decatur Superintendent Rochelle Clark is retiring.