Former Southampton Assistant Principal Files Complaint Against School District Claiming Racial Discrimination

A former assistant principal at Southampton High School has lodged a formal complaint against Superintendent of Schools Dr. Nicholas Dyno and the Southampton Union Free School District, alleging “unlawful discriminatory and retaliatory employment practices,” according to the complaint filed last week with the State Division of Human Rights.

According to his legal team, Keith Saunders, who is Black, was labeled “not loyal” and forced to resign after interviewing for another job with a different school district — something “his white counterparts had previously done,” the complaint said.

“Mr. Saunders has, unfortunately, been subjected to treatment that can only be labeled as outrageously unacceptable,” attorney Frederick Brewington wrote on Friday in an email blast. “The school district was aware of his complaints and did nothing to address them except double down on their intentional acts. The district forced Mr. Saunders to submit his resignation today or face the public humiliation of a board vote to terminate him.”

Dyno declined comment on behalf of the district. “We cannot comment on personnel matters,” he said in an email on Friday.

Saunders joined the district in July 2021 as the summer school principal and was hired as the Southampton High School assistant principal in September 2021, according to the complaint.

His 28 years of educational experience includes 12 as dean of academic services/assistant principal at Uniondale High School, where he received numerous awards and acknowledgments, including educational leadership from the New York State Assembly; Father of the Year from the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. Sigma Beta Beta chapter; the Barbara Jones Service Award from the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists; and more, the complaint said.

Nine months later, Saunders received a favorable evaluation from the district, including glowing comments: “His knowledge, experience and passion are apparent and appreciated. Continued growth in his position will allow him to have a greater impact on the building and the students. In his short time here he has already become a valued member of the Southampton administrative team and the SUFSD school community,” according to the complaint.

But on August 9, Saunders was informed that he was “administratively reassigned to home as of August 18, 2022,” according to the complaint. “Please be reminded, you are prohibited from entering and/or being present on school grounds at any time in the absence of express permission from the school district.”

The complaint says that Dyno determined that “Mr. Saunders lacked ‘loyalty,’ and therefore he, ‘intend[s] to recommend to the Board of Education at their meeting on September 20, 2022, that your services as the high school assistant principal should be terminated effective October 21, 2022.”

On June 3, Saunders had used a vacation day to interview for an assistant principal position at the Central Islip School District, according to the complaint, which is when his “loyalty came into question.”

“Not only is it common practice for employees, including assistant principals, to inquire into other job opportunities, but there is nothing in Mr. Saunders’s employment contract which states or indicates in any way that he may not interview for another position,” the complaint says.

Five days later, the Central Islip School District contacted Dyno, as well as Assistant Superintendent for Student Services Patricia Desiderio and Sean Brand, the president of the Southampton Teachers Association, to discuss “Mr. Saunders’s potential candidacy,” the complaint said.

The next day, Dyno visited Saunders in his office and questioned him about his interview, the complaint said. “Mr. Saunders informed Dr. Dyno that he did indeed apply and did not receive any response from Central Islip,” the complaint said. “Dr. Dyno told Mr. Saunders that ‘Central Islip just put you in a difficult situation with your colleagues here.’”

Saunders met with High School Principal Brian Zahn, Desiderio and Dyno, and according to the complaint, asked if his relationship with the district was damaged beyond repair. He was told that “it was water under the bridge,” the complaint said.

During the last week of July, Saunders texted Dyno to inform him that he had accepted an interview with another school district, “and that the mere fact of an interview did not mean he was leaving Southampton School District,” the complaint said. During a meeting with Dyno on August 9, Saunders was given a letter “indicating he was being terminated because he was not loyal since he accepted an interview with another district,” the complaint said.

The complaint names three white Southampton School District employees who interviewed for jobs in other school districts and “received no repercussion, much less a letter recommending termination,” the complaint said.

“The level of dissatisfaction expressed by Mr. Saunders’s supervisors was certainly differential treatment compared to the way in which Mr. Saunders’s white counterparts in Southampton School District were historically treated,” the complaint said. “To receive a letter of termination for exercising the right to interview with other potential employers when several of Mr. Saunders’s white counterparts have interviewed with other districts and have been celebrated and welcomed back after leaving is overtly and painfully discriminatory.”