Just before 8 a.m. on a windy morning, Nancy S. Grasmick strides across a parking lot toward the doors of the Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Baltimore, her black coat with fur trim flying and an aide trying to keep up.

She's greeted by the principal, Roger Shaw, and with little chit-chat she starts quizzing him on test scores, school renovations, the science curriculum. It's her first stop of the morning, but the 68-year-old state schools superintendent started her day an hour before. She stopped by the office on Baltimore Street, wrestled a Christmas shopping bag full of paperwork up to the seventh floor and had time for a phone call and a briefing by staff before getting over to Dunbar.

Grasmick doesn't have a gear for idling, and she doesn't seem to be fretting over the war she's in to save her job. Gov. Martin O'Malley has made it clear he wants her to leave after nearly 16 years as superintendent. Leaders of the General Assembly told the state school board not to reappoint her to another four-year term. But Grasmick's response is never mind the critics; she will remain totally focused on her agenda.

She won the first round of the battle to oust her when the school board offered her another contract. The legislature might try to pry her out of the post next year, but until then she has things to do, decisions to make.

Sitting across a conference table from Shaw, she gets down to business quickly. Although her face is expressionless and composed, she has the tone of a confidante asking him straightforward questions.

Shaw responds by spilling out his heart, explaining his ambivalence about leaving his principalship in January to take an administrative job as head of city high schools.

"I have been here seven years, and it has been hard for me," he says. He feels is work is unfinished at a school that he has improved drastically. She says she had the same feelings when she left a principal job in Baltimore County and worried she would lose touch with students.

"It will be very good for the system. I hope it will be good for you," she says.

Then she moves on to her questions. How did his students get such great scores on the algebra test? How come only three students from the school took the biology high school assessment last year? Has he thought about changing the sequence of science courses in high school? She thinks he really ought to consider it in his new job.

Will the renovation of the high school be finished in two years? She is concerned the public will be upset if it isn't.

By 9:15 am, she is on the road again, steering her black Ford Crown Victoria toward the building where her biggest critics work - the State House in Annapolis.

Is this woman worried? If so, she doesn't show it. She zooms into the left lane to pass a truck while dialing her cell phone, which is perched in a cradle just to the right of the steering wheel.

She wants to help Roger Shaw on two fronts, she says. She's gets her staff to connect her to a representative from the College Board on the phone. She asks the woman to please call Shaw because his teachers need to be better trained in how to teach Advanced Placement classes.

Then she calls her office to try to understand why one of Shaw's teachers is having difficulty getting certified.

By the time she gets to Annapolis she has called three other people as well, wheeled into a parking garage and walked two blocks briskly, her high-heeled boots clomping on the brick sidewalks.

She flies through the State House, up the elevator and arrives barely in time.

Her assigned seat is as far from the governor's podium as possible, among a group of about 10 Cabinet secretaries.

They are there for a news conference. A committee on which she served is handing over its report to O'Malley about the federal military base realignment, known by its acronym, BRAC. Education is a big issue for BRAC, which is expected to bring thousands of new federal workers to the state.

O'Malley and Grasmick don't appear to make eye contact, but Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown shakes her hand and thanks her.

The television lights flick on, and she is bathed in yellow light. The questions follow her. Does the recent uproar over her tenure have more to do with politics than anything else? What will happen if she leaves? Why is the governor so angry with her?

Grasmick doesn't flinch. She says "whatever the personal feelings are, we will rise above that" to do the work. "We just take it one day at a time," she says.

She has repeatedly given this line to reporters in the past two weeks, and it is perhaps the only hint that she may be measuring her work future in terms of months rather than years.

Even in the education community, which has generally supported her over the years, there are those who think she can't win this battle.

"I think children are being harmed because of this standoff, and there appears to be only one way to eliminate this harm, and that is for Dr. Grasmick to resign," said Matthew Joseph, executive director of Advocates for Children and Youth. "The governor was elected to a four-year term by the people."

Some critics say she should bow out gracefully. They accuse her of politicizing her position when she pushed to take control of 11 failing city schools during the 2006 gubernatorial campaign. They say she was taking sides in support of then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., a Republican, in his campaign against Democrat O'Malley, who was Baltimore's mayor.

O'Malley was furious.

Now that O'Malley is governor, he wants her out, but he doesn't have the power to remove her.

Mutual friends of O'Malley and Grasmick tried to negotiate an amicable resolution to their stand-off. Former Del. Timothy E. Maloney, a Prince George's Democrat who is close to the governor and the superintendent, said he talked to both of them and believed the two could have agreed to a graceful exit for Grasmick - until the state school board voted to give her another four-year contract.

"That was a line in the sand," he says.

The television reporters keep after her, asking about the school takeover plan. Grasmick says politics wasn't involved. "It was fulfilling our duty under federal law," she maintains.

Grasmick wanted the board to put four high schools, including historic Frederick Douglass, into the hands of a company or nonprofit group that would report directly to the state.

Seven middle schools would become charter schools or be operated by a third party but would remain under the ultimate authority of the city school board.

She says the term "takeover" has been misinterpreted. She was just trying to "reconstitute chronically under-performing schools" by forcing the city to turn them into charters or give them to an outside entity to run.

In fact, she sought to put four of the 11 schools under the state's control.

Being under fire is nothing new, says Grasmick's longtime deputy, Ronald Peiffer. She has always fought for unpopular causes, he says.

"It hasn't been a cakewalk. If you think about our current circumstances, it doesn't seem to be dramatically different than what we have been experiencing for 16 years ... except that it is more personal," he says.

Through it all, he said, he has never seen Grasmick wring her hands and worry about how horrible things are. "She says, 'What do we do next?' "

Once the television lights go out, she is off again, grabbing the large black pocketbook stuffed to the brim and stopping only long enough to say hello to a supporter who whispers in her ear.

It's become a standing joke with her staff. If you spend a day with Nancy Grasmick, don't expect to eat or visit the restroom. Her stamina is something she prides herself on, being able to outrun and outwork people who are 10 or 20 years younger than she is, day after day

Back in her car, she says: "I feel fine. I feel I haven't done anything wrong. It is a decision of the [state school] board," she explains. She admits though that she would prefer not to be at war with state leaders.

"Some day, someone else will be state superintendent," she says. "I hope it won't be based on partisan politics."

At school headquarters, she stands in a hallway at a row of pictures of former superintendents who served since 1916. There have been only five before her and all but one had held the office for more than a decade.

History shows, she says, that the legislature tried to insulate the job from the shift in governors, but recently governors have grown more restless with this idea.

Her office is adorned with knick-knacks and photographs, including one of a staff member's child, a boy who told her he wants to become a lawyer, and one of a deaf child laughing. She became intensely interested in the hearing impaired after she went temporarily deaf in high school and then went on to get a master's degree at Gallaudet University.

Against the white carpeting, a pink couch and a lot of green plants, are plaques and awards and a long table covered with stacks of papers.

There has been an outpouring of support since she was re-appointed, she said. Two wreaths were delivered here, a black and white drawing of Chestertown and a couple of poinsettias. She's gotten lots of e-mail, letters and phone calls from the education community in the state.

She's nearly ready for the next meeting, but she squeezes in a private talk with a staff member, a call from a reporter in Hagerstown, a five-minute update on the status of federal legislation. Then she returns a call from a local school superintendent.

It's been seven hours on the go, and she hasn't been to the bathroom or eaten more than three bites of a Subway turkey sandwich with a slug of a Coke Zero.

It's time for an hour-and-a-half meeting with staff and representatives from parents, teachers and local school districts.

That will be followed by a meeting with the dean of education at Towson University and a brief phone conversation with a health official.

At 6:45, most of her staff is long gone, and she makes her way home.

liz.bowie@baltsun.com