HOWLAND – William Ziemer remains SAD 31’s superintendent of schools.

The SAD 31 board of directors unanimously opted to retain Ziemer Thursday night after about three hours of an occasionally acrimonious executive session partly attended by Ziemer, his attorney, Peter Carey of Portland, and school board attorney Bruce Smith, also of Portland.

Ziemer had been on indefinite paid leave since Oct. 4, when the board voted in a split vote to suspend him and launch an investigation into his fitness to serve as superintendent. The board was prompted by 700 residents who signed a petition asking the Maine Department of Education to determine Ziemer’s fitness.

Ziemer and Carey said they were pleased with the board’s decision.

“I look forward to working with this board and the community,” Ziemer said after the vote. “I think my focus right now is on attaining our future goals.”

Per the board’s vote, Ziemer will resume his position Dec. 29 and will immediately be available to assist interim Superintendent Ann Bridge in the transition process. She is due to leave her post Jan. 1.

The board also decided to prepare performance goals and an evaluation process for Ziemer – important elements to any performance evaluation – by its meeting on Dec. 28.

The board was developing goals and an evaluation process when Ziemer was placed on indefinite leave, he said.

Without an evaluation process or other clear direction from the board, firing Ziemer was unlikely, board Chairwoman Beth Turner said.

The board met with attorney Edwin Snyder during the first hour of the executive session and reviewed the findings of the investigation into Ziemer’s fitness Snyder did at the board’s request.

Snyder declined to comment after leaving the meeting, and he and board members wouldn’t discuss the investigation. He has said that he interviewed about 35 residents, school staff, administrators and SAD 31 board members since starting the probe in early October.

State investigators, meanwhile, said they lacked grounds upon which to revoke Ziemer’s superintendent’s certificate, but did find that political infighting, lack of leadership and communications breakdowns with the board and the school system were enough to threaten SAD 31’s state approval, which could, in turn, threaten the state funding provided to the system, particularly for a new high school to replace the crumbling Penobscot Valley High School.

The investigators said that while the school system would retain its place on the state’s construction funding list, the infighting and poor communications forced them to recommend to Maine Education Commissioner Susan Gendron that SAD 31’s approval rating be changed from “approved” to “provisional approval.”

Turner declined to comment on the state’s report, saying that with a new high school to build and rifts to heal, it was more important for Ziemer and board members to look to the future.

SAD 31 is in the preliminary stages of planning a new high school to replace PVHS, but it is unclear as yet whether that new structure will be a renovated or a totally new building.

“We have a lot of work to do and we have a lot of folks who are willing to work together to move the school system forward,” said Turner, the board’s spokeswoman.

Ziemer said he believed that the problems which caused the state and school board reviews began earlier this year, when the state seemed about to award conceptual approval to a new school but then seemed to change course.

When that happened, various groups began fighting, he said.

“If the prospect still exists for a new school, then that will go a long way” toward dissipating the controversy, Ziemer said.