The principal of a prestigious elementary school was suspended without pay Wednesday night after an eight-month probe found him responsible for tampering with test results to inflate student scores.

The school board’s 8-1 vote to begin termination hearings against Roger Previs, who had earlier passed a lie detector test, was loudly booed by parents in the packed 700-seat auditorium.

The scandal at Stratfield, an award-winning elementary school that consistently outscored other schools in the state on Connecticut skills exams, stunned parents, many of whom had moved to this 53,000-resident suburb of New York City to enroll their children at Stratfield.