Twiggy Billue plans to fight to be reinstated into her role as an advocate for the children of Syracuse. Assistance with the anticipated legal fees are needed at this time to help her to overturn this injustice. As friends and allies of Twiggy Billue, we need your help!
On January 20th 2026, Cherylene "Twiggy" Billue was stripped of her elected position as a Commissioner of the Syracuse City School District Board of Education. After a sham investigation into claims that she violated district-wide school visitation protocols, the general public was kept in the dark for months as to the nature of the charges. Local news agencies asked for details of the charges through multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and were denied. Citizens were also not allowed a voice in the removal process, as the charges were only revealed during the final dismissal hearing.
Despite the fact that portions of the final hearing were handled behind closed doors to protect the identities of children at the school, those who attended were left shaking their heads over several key points that indicated investigator bias, hearsay information being accepted as truth and an investigational process that neglected to collect some of the most basic facts of the incident. With all of the shortcomings of the investigation and hearing process, we did learn these facts from the witnesses who testified under oath:
1 - Two attorneys representing the school district and school board are partners in the same law firm as the third attorney who conducted the investigation, highlighting a serious conflict of interest. One of those attorneys even presided over the hearing. Check out the clip below:
2 - The investigating attorney failed to collect and review critical evidence, including school security footage and sign-in logs. She also never visited the school or interviewed the school security guards who were on duty at the time of the incident.
3 - The investigating attorney interviewed some witnesses, but did not place them under oath or record most statements. Instead she took notes and compiled a report with her conclusions based upon those interviews. In one critical portion of the report, she referred incorrectly to a Mrs. Billue being present. When questioned further about that, she revealed that she assumed that another woman at the incident shared the same last name. In fact, Twiggy Billue was NOT at that location or involved in that particular incident, in any way.
4 - Threatening text messages sent to another parent were reviewed by the investigating attorney and accepted as evidence without any verification that they originated from Twiggy Billue. Members of the school board believed the texts to be from Twiggy, even though they did not come from her phone.
The majority of the hearing can be found at the link below from local media outlet CNYCentral. Inexplicably, it does not include any of the partial, and public testimony of Twiggy Billue or her husband.