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.