NATCHEZ — Testimony began Monday in the civil lawsuit of a former Natchez-Adams School District principal who claims she was harassed, held to higher standards and ultimately forced to resign by the administration because she is white.

The plaintiff, Cindy Idom, is suing the district over the matter.

Idom, who resigned at the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year after 11 years as a principal at West Elementary School and shortly after she was reassigned to Frazier Elementary School against her wishes, was the only witness to take the stand Monday in the federal courthouse.

The school district will be given a chance to rebut Idom’s claims later this week.

Idom testified for more than three hours Monday, and is set to take the stand again this morning.

Idom testified that in the year leading up to her resignation, NASD Superintendent Frederick Hill and Assistant Superintendent Tanisha Smith adopted a management style that challenged her three previous decades of experience with previous superintendents.

When questions about school policies or performance arise and Idom tried to address them, Hill and Smith would respond with “major sarcasm or smirk at you to make you feel embarrassed,” Idom said.

“The three superintendents I worked under would always come to the office and let me know what they wanted,” she said. “They never questioned anything. They trusted my decisions, and they believed in me.”

In her previous years as principal, Idom said her performance reviews were “if not exemplary, they were excellent.”

Under the new leadership, however, a member of a team of six people handpicked by the superintendent would drop in at West Elementary unannounced several times a week “and look for something wrong,” Idom said.

“They would nitpick about things that could be addressed by a phone call,” she said, recalling one instance in which she was pulled from a meeting with teachers to be told the sidewalk needed sweeping.

Another time, members of the team showed up on a rainy day during bus loading.

“I had to leave (the students) to fend for themselves and go with this team of six to go and try to find something wrong,” she said.

During that year, Idom received a number of official reprimands, something she said she’d never received before that school year, to the point that she said she lost count.

“At some point, I felt so picked on, I was hoping it was for my betterment, but at the end I felt (Hill) was trying to run me off,” she said.

Some of the instances of official reprimand were for policies Idom said she knew the two other elementary principals in the district — both of whom are black — also had in place, but they did not receive reprimands.

One of those policies was allowing kindergarten students to prepare for buses 15 minutes early. Hill wanted that time to be used for instruction, Idom said.

She also testified that, after the school district restructured to have neighborhood-based schools rather than grade-based schools, she had to contend with a nearly wholly new faculty — with only two exceptions — that was unhappy with the reorganization.

The school was not physically equipped to take on the extra 200 students the reorganization forced, Idom said, and in one instance four teachers were forced to share one classroom, while interventionists who work with special needs students had to work in a computer lab, sometimes while other classes were using the lab.

While a trailer had been donated to the school that would have alleviated some of the problems, it needed renovation, she said.

“When I asked about it, basically (Hill’s) response was basically, ‘It is not going to happen this year. Don’t ask me again, it is not going to happen,’” she said.

During the testimony, Idom discussed how she was recommended for rehiring and the school board approved the recommendation in February 2013.

In March, she received a letter — which other principals also received — saying that even though the recommendation had been approved, if a school received an “F” rating based on school performance tests, termination was on the table.

That year was the first time West had been required to take the tests.

At the end of the school year, Idom received notification she would be transferred to Frazier Elementary. She said she asked to be allowed to stay at West but was not allowed.

In early July, she received a call that Hill and Smith wanted to meet with her, and Idom said Hill told her based on school performance scores he could no longer offer her a principal’s job, but she could accept a position as a teacher.

Idom said the superintendent demanded an answer that day, and she tendered her resignation.

No other principals were removed that year for failing scores. Even though West Elementary received a failing grade, it was the No. 2 school in the district, Idom said.

One of the key issues in the trial is if the resignation was freely given or if it could be considered to be coerced.

Attorney Tucker Mitchell, who is representing the school district, told the court in his opening statement that the matter was a voluntary retirement.

“(Hill) didn’t say, ‘I am terminating your employment,’” Mitchell said.

He also said race did not factor into the personnel decisions connected to Idom, as she has contended.

“They did not consider that she was white in dealing with her, just as they didn’t consider if someone is black when dealing with them,” he said. “How can you argue that race is a factor? There are more white administrators in the district now than when Hill came on board.”

Idom is seeking unspecified damages for lost past and future wages; mental anguish and emotional distress; damages to reputation, pain and suffering, humiliation and embarrassment; actual and compensatory damages; incidental and consequential damages; punitive damages; attorney’s fees and “other damages to be established.”