Detroit Public Schools superintendent Connie Calloway was fired Monday evening when the school board voted 7-4 to terminate her contract. The decision will be effective Tuesday.

The board’s resolution said Calloway was being fired “with cause” because she was “insubordinate” and “uncooperative” with the board and that she failed to provide leadership. The resolution said she was to blame for the state’s decision to declare DPS finances were in a “state of emergency.”

 Calloway chose not to speak before the vote. But after the vote she told the nearly full auditorium at Spain Elementary School that the board made an “unjust decision” and that she was being scapegoated for the problems the district had before she came. She said the board was firing her because they were trying to silence her efforts at transparency that could reveal their backward dealings.

“It’s an unjust decision,” she said. Calloway said the board was trying to silence her and avoid transparency.

The board, she said, now has fired two superintendents in the three years since it took office following an earlier period of state oversight.

Calloway said she had been “blamed and scapegoated for conditions that predated” her arrival.

At the end of her three-minute speech she said she didn’t want to keep talking and put the community in “an uncomfortable position.” “I have much say,” she told a crowd that was becoming increasingly load with insults and cheers. “My heart grieves for the children of Detroit.”