Paladino wants school board to resign

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - Outspoken Republican businessman Carl Paladino is still "mad as hell" and he passionately spoke out once again against the Buffalo Public School Board.

He called the school system "pathetic” and "dysfunctional" and he wants the entire school board thrown out. And now, he may be running for a seat on the board himself, "to deal once and for all with this total dysfunction in our City of Buffalo School system."

Paladino, who ran for governor against Andrew Cuomo in 2010, wants to see other changes, including boarding schools in the city.

Recently there's been a lot of attention focused on the Buffalo Public School system as it tries to turn around its failing schools and improve poor graduation rates.

Wednesday night, Paladino addressed the school board and its current members, saying, "You had an opportunity to do something better for the kids and you failed in it. So I'm back, and I'm coming after you. And I want you to resign, as a board, all of you, because we’re coming after you and we'll see you all gone. Next year at this time were going to have a much better board sitting in this room."

This isn’t the first time he has taken on the school board. Back in 2008, he took out a radio ad calling for all of the members of the board to resign.

Paladino blames the school system for the middle class leaving the city. He said, "They've left, they can't afford to send their kids to private school, and they certainly don't want to send them to this dysfunctional city school system, so they have to move, they go out to the suburbs or they leave the area."

News 4 reached out to school board members and are awaiting their response to Paladino's criticism and potential run for a seat amongst them.