MORGANTON -- Hours after she ordered police to remove some observers at a school board meeting, Tracey Norman calmly spoke about the controversy surrounding the Burke County School district for much of the last three months.

As chairman of the school board, Norman led the push to remove Superintendent David Burleson, a popular school administrator who has spent his entire 27 year career in education in Burke County.

“Who wants to destroy someone who’s given 27 years of their life?” Norman said, in her first extended comments on the controversy. “I don’t.”

Board members originally voted in April to cancel Burleson’s contract, prompting the superintendent to seek an injunction.

A judge blocked Burleson’s firing, and angry parents, staff members and students packed several school board meetings to protest the board’s efforts to fire a man they respect.

Community resentment carried over to a meeting Tuesday afternoon as school leaders agreed in a 4-2 vote to buyout Burleson’s contract, apparently ending the contentious relationship between the board and the district’s top administrator.

“There was nothing personal,” Norman told NewsChannel 36, adding that she felt the district needed to “go in a different direction.”

Norman said she wanted to elaborate on the board’s decision to oust Burleson, but attorneys told school leaders to remain silent on the matter.

“How do you give a reason when the advice you’re given is ‘you don’t need to give a reason’?” she said, acknowledging that an explanation might have diffused some of the frustration of Burleson’s supporters.

“They got upset without knowing any facts, without knowing two sides of the story.”

Police have examined threatening e-mails Norman has received. At least one man has been arrested for allegedly making death threats.

“We have taken enormous abuse,” she said.

Tuesday’s decision to buyout the remainder of Burleson’s contract, which was set to expire in April 2010, will reportedly cost the district about $172,000.

Burleson, who began moving out of his office Tuesday evening, said he wanted to keep his job but felt it was time to end the dispute over his contract.

“The thing that I hate about it is that’s money coming from students,” he said.

School leaders voted last week to cut the salaries of all of the district’s employees.

Norman said board members were briefed on the financial impact of paying Burleson’s severance, and she maintained it was the right decision.

Burleson said he might seek a job as a high school principal at another district in North Carolina, a position he said he enjoyed earlier in his career.

A search is underway for Burleson’s replacement.

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