Thursday, October 1, 2026
At a Freeport Board of Education meeting on July 22, trustees voted to reinstate Fia Davis as superintendent of schools, 15 months after she was placed on paid reassignment. The district has also agreed to settle the lawsuit it filed against Davis in February.
The school board, led by President Michael Pomerico, approved two resolutions at last week's meeting. The first was a "settlement agreement and general release" between the district and Davis. The second authorizes Davis to resume her work as superintendent effective Aug. 3 and terminated the district's employment agreement with Shakirah Miller, who served as the interim superintendent since April 2. Miller's contract was set to expire on July 30.
Both resolutions were passed with a vote of 4-1. Trustee Sunday Coward, who was the school board president prior to Pomerico's election earlier this month, was the only dissenting vote.
"The board, along with the school community, are excited to bring Dr. Davis back to work as our superintendent," Pomerico said after the vote to reinstate her. "I look forward to the district's rising success."
"We would like to thank the board for taking the task of immediate reform for our district," Patricia Langan, president of the Freeport Teachers Association, said. "To Dr. Davis, if you are listening, welcome back and welcome home. Very much like the holidays when friends and family return, boy, do I have a lot to tell you."
Davis was hired as superintendent on Aug. 21, 2024, taking over for long time district administrator and superintendent Kishore Kuncham. Exhibiting a strong background of 15 years as a public school principal in The Bronx and for a combined four years as an assistant superintendent and superintendent there, Davis was initially welcomed with enthusiasm by the school board.
Drama and confusion soon began, however. On April 21, 2025, exactly eight months after her hiring date, the district announced that it would be placing Davis on paid administrative reassignment. Davis continued receive salary and benefits while reassigned to an undisclosed position in the district.
Soon after the initial announcement of Davis' reassignment, Alice Kane, a former assistant superintendent in the district who retired in 2023, was appointed as the interim superintendent. Kane held the job until April 1, when she decided to return to retirement, and was subsequently replaced by Miller. Kane was initially only given a four-month contract worth $94,000, but had to be retained for an additional eight months.
During the 15 months that Davis was reassigned, the district continued to pay her and an interim simultaneously.
Davis' reassignment created a greal deal of confusion and outrage among Freeport teachers and parents, because the district did not publicly explain the decision for nearly a year before they announced it was suing Davis. The district has not yet disclosed how much the settlement is for, and whether Davis or the district will pay it.
The decision comes on the heels of yet another controversial legal matter. After the school board meeting on July 1, Miller called 911 on Pomerico for tapped or poked her in the arm. Miller appeared to have attempted to initiate an investigation into the incident, but both the Freeport Police Deparment and the Nassau County district attorney's office told the Herald that no charges were eing filed against Pomerico, and there was no active investigation.
Pomerico told the Herald via email that his confrontation with Miller did not impact the district's decision to reinstate Davis.
Neither Miller nor Davis attended last week’s school board meeting. Miller's assigned seat was farther from Pomerico's than it has been at past meetings, when the two sat next to each other.
After the Herald’s initial reporting on the story, many community members and local leaders voiced support for Davis’s reinstatement. Assemblywoman Judy Griffin, who represents the 21st District, which includes parts of Freeport, was among them.
“Excellent news,” Griffin wrote on Facebook. “[I am] so glad that Fia Davis will be reinstated as superintendent and that the district will no longer be paying two superintendents.”
Some observers, however, have questioned the school board’s decision, and Davis’s ability to lead. Kelly Steele, a teacher who worked at the Urban Assembly School for the Performing Arts in Harlem for five years while Davis was the principal, described problematic behavior in her leadership.
“While I was there we had so much teacher turnover,” Steele wrote in an email to the Herald. “In the five years I taught there we had about 40 teachers leave. Now keep in mind this is a small school.”
Steele also claimed that Davis was at one point accused of using atypical disciplinary measures, including corporal punishment and forcing students to clean her office. Davis and the New York City Department of Education have not replied to request for comment in order to deny or corroborate Steele’s testimony.
The Herald has continued to seek information from multiple sources, receiving responses to several questions from the school board president and an acknowledgment of a Freedom of Information Law request submitted to the district a week earlier. A separate FOIL request was also acknowledged by the New York City Department of Education seeking records related to the returning superintendent.
This story has been updated.
