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.