Will Fayette school board agree to superintendent’s demands to get job back?

The Fayette school board chair on Monday would not say whether the board will agree to Superintendent Demetrus Liggins’ demands to rescind his paid administrative leave and give back his job.

Tyler Murphy would not discuss the school board’s next steps or say whether they have entered into new negotiations with Liggins.

“The Board is committed to our core mission: ensuring stability for our district and keeping our focus on our students. At this time, I am unable to address these matters and any open meetings will be announced consistent with the requirements of Kentucky law,” Murphy told the Herald-Leader.

On Friday, Liggins demanded his job back, arguing he was illegally placed on leave earlier this month. A lawyer for Liggins sent the district a statement overnight Friday demanding officials reinstate him in the next four days.

The lawyer, Washington-based Amos Jones, contends the school violated state law by interpreting as a resignation Liggins’ notice to school board members that he was interested in negotiating a separation agreement.

Liggins notified the school board June 10 that he was interested in pursuing a separation agreement that included a year of compensation, but when the school board announced he was resigning, he countered that his notice did not qualify as a resignation and sought to withdraw his request to discuss a separation agreement.

The district instead placed him on paid administrative leave in a move Liggins says was illegal and violated the state’s open meeting law.

Murphy and school district officials told the Herald-Leader on Friday the decision was “legal and appropriate.”

Liggins’ leave came days after state Rep. Adrielle Camuel, an administrative assistant in the district, made a complaint to the board that Liggins slipped a note under Camuel’s office door that implied a threat of legal action for criticizing his leadership.

Liggins was captured on video slipping a piece of paper under Camuel’s office door. Camuel’s lawyer says that paper was a printed email purporting to be from a law firm advising Liggins may have been defamed by critics. Liggins has said he never wrote the e-mail or slipped it under Camuel’s door.

Camuel, a Democrat who represents part of Lexington in Frankfort, was publicly critical of Liggins after the superintendent announced job cuts to deal with the district’s yearlong budget problems.

Camuel’s lawyer said she immediately questioned the authenticity of the email, which was obtained by the Herald-Leader. The firm that purportedly sent it — Kaplan, Johnson, Abate and Bird — told the Herald-Leader it did not write the message and has never worked with Liggins.

Liggins’ contract runs through 2029. Assistant Superintendent Bill Bradford is leading the district for now.

According to a Friday news release from Jones, a civil rights lawyer and a Lexington native, Liggins’ “new legal team contends that FCPS manufactured a resignation where none existed.

“Dr. Liggins had proposed discussions toward a possible, mutually negotiated separation agreement — not submitted an unconditional resignation — and expressly corrected the Board’s characterization before it acted,” Jones said. “Nevertheless, FCPS publicly announced a ‘resignation notice,’ treated his occupied office as vacant, removed him from every function of the superintendency, and transferred those functions to another administrator.”

Jones contends that the school board cited the wrong statutory authority in placing Liggins on leave.

They said that letter invoked KRS 160.160 and KRS 160.370, “although neither provision expressly creates an indefinite procedure by which a board may suspend a contracted superintendent, prohibit him from communicating with district-affiliated persons, exclude him from all school property, and install a substitute officeholder. KRS 160.370 instead identifies the superintendent as the Board’s executive agent and professional adviser.”

The notice argues that the school board attempted to avoid KRS 160.350, which is the statute specifically governing superintendent terms, vacancies, acting appointments and removal for cause.

The lawyers say there was no vacancy because Liggins never resigned, executed a separation agreement or retired, and he was never lawfully discharged.

“This is not administrative leave in any meaningful sense,” Jones wrote. “They announced a resignation that never happened, displaced the lawful superintendent, installed another superintendent, silenced Dr. Liggins inside his own system, and then hired investigators to determine whether the result already imposed should be imposed. Kentucky law does not allow a school board to manufacture a vacancy, perform a removal first, and search for a justification afterward.”

Also on Friday, Liggins submitted a written complaint to Murphy alleging the Fayette County Board of Education violated the Kentucky Open Meetings Act during the special-called June 10 meeting that resulted in Liggins being placed on leave.

The complaint accused the school board of illegally discussing Liggins’ employment in closed session, and conducting substantive deliberations and reaching consensus in private.

Liggins is asking the school board to acknowledge the violations, rescind his administrative leave, restore him as superintendent, correct the public record and begin the conversation anew about a potential separation agreement. In the complaint, Liggins said that if the board does not meet his demands, he reserves the right to appeal the denial or failure to respond to the Kentucky Attorney General as well as file an action in Fayette Circuit Court.

Jones told the Herald-Leader Monday, “We are watching the Board and allowing them the full number of days the statute allows FCPS to correct course.”

The Fayette school board meets at 6 p.m. Monday.