CAIRO — One local school principal plans to appeal the non-renewal ruling for his 2009-2010 contract.

Howard J. Stiller, counsel for Washington Middle School Principal Arthur Anderson, said Friday his client intends to appeal the Grady County Board of Education’s recent decision to the state board of education.

“After the appeal is filed, a date will be set for the hearing in Atlanta,” Stiller said. “Legal arguments are made at the hearing as to why or why not the board decision is legally correct.”

A lengthy non-renewal hearing was held April 22 and was followed by board deliberation and the ruling.

Board Attorney Tom Lehman, in opening statement, said that non-renewal is not based on reduction in force, but that Anderson “did not completely execute duties as principal and good and sufficient cause.”

“This includes continued lack of progress of Washington Middle School toward being a successfully performing school and other reasons with regards to how the school has been conducted,” he said.

Four witnesses were called to testify to their interactions with Anderson.

Parent Ken Leggett said he removed his son from WMS due to a safety issue he felt was unsatisfactorily handled.

There were incidents in the locker room when no adult was present and, after repeated attempts to have this corrected and no implementation, his son was involved in an altercation and he moved the child to Whigham.

Stiller objected to the relevance of Leggett’s testimony because it happened several years ago, but was overruled after Lehman said it would tie to what is happening now at the school.

Stiller said it was unclear why Leggett was faulting Anderson, to which the witness responded that, as principal, Anderson is in charge of the school and what happens there.

Natalie Zajac, special education director for Grady County Schools, said her working relationship with Anderson is unsatisfactory.

The school is classified as a “Needs Improvement” or “NI” school according to Adequate Yearly Progress – AYP – ranking. It has been so for seven years and one of its subgroups is the special education children.

During a June 2008 retreat to Callaway Gardens with other NI7 schools, Zajac said Anderson did not really interact with his group to form its extended learning time, or ELT, plan for those students. Scheduling was done, but she said Anderson had it changed with no notification and it was not restored until Superintendent Dr. Tommy Pharis intervened.

Response to a special coordinator sent from Albany to help staff with inclusion of students with disabilities also made it clear to Zajac that the program was not in place as she was led to believe.

She also mentioned cases of students with disabilities being sent to ISS or OSS for more than 10 days for behavioral problems without ascertaining if the problems are related to the child’s disability.

Stiller, in cross-examination, said Zajac could not expect every principal to agree with everything she wanted to do without discussing it and that Anderson was part of the plan’s team.

Martha Fowler, assistant superintendent for teaching and learning, expressed dissatisfaction with issues related to the school’s improvement plan.

She said offers to conduct requested workshops to help teachers have not been scheduled and presentations have been canceled.

Her concerns about Anderson include a lack of leadership, missing required meetings and a lack of communication.

“In comparison with other principals, interaction is not that frequent and most of it is my initiation through telephone call or something specific in e-mail,” Fowler said. “A lot of the time, Mr. Anderson does not respond or even open e-mails.”

Stiller questioned Fowler as to whether keeping track of her e-mails was not “above and beyond” her job description.

“I don’t think that it is beyond my responsibility to know that principals are looking at e-mails that I send them that involve specific requests for either information that I have to submit to the department of education for federal or state reports,” she said.

Stiller asked what harm came to her by Anderson not responding to the e-mails and she said the time to track down requested info takes away from other responsibilities.

Stiller said she still had time to track e-mails and that Anderson is not required to contact her if he did not feel the need.

Pharis said his concern is not that WMS has not made AYP, but that the school is not being proactive in developing new strategies to implement for WMS to move off the NI list.

“I would never say that Arthur Anderson should be non-renewed simply because WMS did not make AYP simply based on a subgroup,” Pharis said.

Anderson’s 2008 evaluation documented him as lacking in focus for the school, working with students and communication, the superintendent said. This evaluation included specific objectives for improvement from him, as well as Anderson’s own plan.

Pharis said Anderson’s response was defensive and basically stated that his evaluation and observations were incorrect.

Anderson was deemed satisfactory in only one area, fiscal, in his 2009 evaluation and this is the basis for his non-renewal, Pharis said.

There were 22 different attachments in Anderson’s evaluation, many used multiple times, including the Callaway conference, not responding to asbestos training, getting school information to the newspaper, consistency issues for dress code, not attending principals meetings, not properly communicating with staff, the ELT schedule, a “defeatist attitude” concerning special education, instructional leadership and interaction with parents.

Pharis said these represent leadership, focus, communication, consistency, safety and student issues.

“The principal sets the tone for the entire school,” Pharis said. “Mr. Anderson’s focus is discipline, school rules and procedures. We are not in the rules business, we are in the people business and every situation is different.”

Stiller said Anderson’s signature on his March 9 evaluation only verifies receipt of the evaluation, not that his client agreed with it, and that it took less than 24 hours for the system to type a letter of non-renewal.

He said the letter stated Anderson “will not be renewed,” not that he was being recommended for non-renewal.

Pharis said standard procedure was followed and Anderson had a right to contest. He stressed there was nothing inappropriate in the letter.

On redirect, Lehman asked Pharis if he had any general concerns about WMS or Anderson.

“My observation is that it is not an atmosphere that leads to best efforts in teaching or learning,” Pharis said.

Stiller asked if anyone was there to testify to this and Pharis said no.

Anderson is tenured as an assistant principal, but there is no spot for Anderson in the system, officials said. If Anderson’s non-renewal is upheld, his position is expected to be filled from within.