The dismissals of several Newburgh school district officials has some students and parents wondering what effect the overhaul will have on students, and worrying about the example set by bickering school district officials.

"The children need to see positive role models," said Taurean Lassic, a Newburgh Free Academy alumnus and father of an NFA senior.

He is familiar with the bickering from years past, just with different characters.

Currently, two factions on the school board have spent months arguing over major personnel and curriculum issues and attacked each other over election campaign antics.

During Tuesday's five-hour meeting the outgoing five-member board majority voted to hire another two administrators who will each earn more than $150,000 a year, and officially eliminated 13 administrator positions at the request of Acting Superintendent Lisa Buon.

Buon, a temporary hire, has received intense blowback from the four-member board minority and its supporters for drastically overhauling staff.

Buon has said she plans to cut the administrative budget and divert savings toward classroom support, which includes the hiring of new teaching assistants.

Lassic said everyone who was in the room during Tuesday's rowdy board meeting should pause.

"Why are you doing this?," he said of their decisions to run for a school board seat in the first place. "If it's for the betterment of the children, then you have to take yourself out of that equation and remember that the children are suffering."

The meeting was delayed multiple times to restore order and once as Newburgh police officers removed an attendee who would not obey a security guard's request to leave.

Felicia Carter, a Newburgh resident whose children have graduated from NFA and now live elsewhere, said she cannot speculate on how the staff overhaul might affect students.

She did feel comfortable saying that five hours of fighting followed by a police visit to end the evening is a bad look and a bad example.

"If they can't depend on the board and the administration to be adults and settle things amicably, for the good of the children, then they don't need to be on the board," Carter said.

The board voted to delay multiple other votes to hire administrators.

It will consider those items and other staffing requests from Buon at its June 24 meeting.

Two newly elected members will join the board July 2, shifting voting power back to the faction that has fiercely opposed Buon's agenda.

The new six-member majority will have sufficient votes to reverse much of Buon's changes and fire Buon.