Syracuse schools commissioner resigns amid investigation into district charges

Twiggy Billue resigned from the Syracuse City School District Board of Education while under investigation, then the board later moved to remove her and spelled out charges tied to district security and ethics. The case left one of Syracuse’s top school posts in limbo as the district was also in the middle of a leadership change.

At a removal hearing on Jan. 21, 2026, the Syracuse City School District Board of Education said Billue failed to follow the district’s visitor policy and protocol. Board members said she did not sign in at a security checkpoint and bypassed security in December 2025. A second charge accused her of breaching the district’s code of ethics, with the board saying that issue dated to September 2025.

A later district social post said the school board voted unanimously to remove Commissioner Twiggy Billue and claimed she violated her oath of office. The public timeline still leaves basic questions open, including what prompted her resignation, how long the matter had been under review, and what steps district leaders took before the charges were made public.

The timing mattered inside Syracuse City School District because the board was already dealing with another transition at the top. NewsChannel 9 interview coverage in late October 2025 said Superintendent Anthony Davis was retiring the next day and that Pam Odom was the new superintendent. Billue’s departure added another open question for a district that depends on stable board oversight and clear lines of authority.

The scrutiny also landed in a district with a record of past investigations. In October 2013, the New York Attorney General’s Office began investigating whether Syracuse schools failed to provide students procedural safeguards and discriminated against students in discipline policies. In May 2021, the Office of the New York State Comptroller announced that three district employees were charged with fraud in a scheme.

For Syracuse families, those episodes and Billue’s case now sit in the same uneasy history of public trust, discipline and ethics inside the district. With a commissioner removed, a superintendent transition underway and unanswered questions about the investigation’s timeline, the district enters its next school-year decisions under pressure to show that its internal rules still mean something.