Over a year into her termination hearing, suspended Palmerton Area High School Principal Paula Husar offered her first testimony during Monday’s three-hour session.

Husar was called to testify by the district, which is winding down its case with only one witness remaining.

Palmerton Superintendent Scot Engler recommended her dismissal on over 20 charges handed down in September 2017. On Monday, Husar spoke about several of those charges, including one that she gave confiscated tobacco back to a high school student.

According to testimony, a group of four or five students left their group for 15 to 20 minutes during a fall 2016 field trip to Maple Grove Raceway. When the students returned to the school, two or three were searched by Husar “based on information she had received from the teachers on the trip.”

Husar found a canister of chewing tobacco in one student’s bookbag. She told the school board Monday she spoke to the student’s mom, who said she was not going to come get the tobacco herself and asked if it could be returned to the student.

Asked by the district’s attorney, Shawn Lochinger, if she was aware that violated school policy, Husar said it may be, but it wasn’t the first time such things had been returned to students.

“It has been done and was done before,” she said. “It has always been done. Not by me, but in the junior high it happened to a student with a bottle of alcohol.”

During questioning from board members, Director Kathy Fallow said that an administrator returning confiscated tobacco wasn’t a violation of policy in itself. What violated policy, she said, was a student having the tobacco on school grounds.

Husar testified that she told the student they would be receiving consequences, possibly in-school suspension.

On questioning from her lawyer Mark Bufalino, Husar testified that she never saw the tobacco confiscation included by Engler as part of the Pennsylvania Safe Schools Report, where the district is required to report such incidents. The district argued that Husar didn’t log the incident into the PowerSchool program until after the student had graduated in June.

The teachers on the trip, according to a report Husar filed, said the students who left the group were acting differently, very energetically, and suspected they were doing something they shouldn’t have been doing.

Asked if she had any concerns the students who left the group during the field trip were drinking alcohol or doing drugs, Husar emphatically answered no.

“I know these students,” Husar said. “I talked to their parents. I didn’t think that then and I don’t think that now.”

Husar said several days after the field trip, the teachers were told not to discuss the matter with her anymore.

Visits with math teacher

Questioning continued Monday over a charge that Husar walked into high school math teacher Pam Wuest’s classroom 21 times in 12 days without explanation and without following up with her about the visits.

According to Husar, the visits did have a purpose and stemmed from multiple parent and student complaints.

“She was sarcastic with kids and made statements like, you should know the answers or the information already,” Husar said of Wuest’s interaction with students. I felt like I was doing my job. Mrs. Wuest never saw it as her problem. It was always the kids.”

In earlier testimony, Wuest told the school board she feared for her job because of the frequency of Husar observing her classroom. Husar disputed Wuest’s testimony that there were no follow-up meetings about the observations.

Special education student moved

Another high school teacher, Tom Smelas, testified at a previous hearing that Husar told him she was moving a special education student out of his classroom per a district magistrate directive on a truancy issue.

On Monday, Husar said a district magistrate would never give such a directive and the decision to move a student out of his classroom would be at her discretion.

According to Husar, the student was before the judge on a truancy issue and said the main reason she wasn’t coming to school was because she didn’t like Smelas’ class.

“If I recall, the judge asked if it was possible to change her schedule,” Husar testified. “If I was convinced it was the only reason the student wasn’t coming to school, that would be a strategy I would use.”

Husar said she would not move a special education student out of a classroom and into the guidance browsing room without first consulting with the special education case manager, consulting the student’s parents and revising the student’s IEP.

Asked repeatedly, Husar said she couldn’t remember if the IEP was revised.

“I don’t remember that, but I wouldn’t have moved the student without that happening,” she said.

What’s Next?

The district said Monday it plans to call just one more witness at the next hearing, which hasn’t been set yet but looks like it will take place in March.

That witness, according to Lochinger, will be Special Education Director Suzanne Rentschler.

Bufalino said he anticipates one more full night of testimony from Husar and another night for his remaining witnesses.