Oregon Public Broadcasting

School leaders in Washington state are responding to a new federal program meant to help the lowest achieving schools.

District leaders in Longview and Vancouver are removing some school principals at the end of this school year. 

That's a first step to overhaul schools, even though steps won’t be mandatory for another year.

Vancouver associate superintendent, Christine Burgess, says the principals at Discovery and Jason Lee Middle Schools volunteered to move.

It was because it could mean as much as $4.5 million for each of their schools.

Christine Burgess: “It’s aggressive – removing principals – it’s pretty ‘shock and awe.’ And it’s telling us that there’s teeth in this bill. We’re not very happy about the removal of our principals, because we think they’re excellent. However, we can’t afford not to have these resources for our kids, not to apply for them.”

The federal program gives low-performing schools four choices. They can close and reopen as charter schools.  That’s not an option in Washington, because charters aren’t allowed.

Burgess says the option to close buildings altogether doesn’t make sense because the district doesn’t have room elsewhere.

The remaining options require removing the principal.

Burgess says the district could also re-assign a number of teachers. But Burgess says Vancouver is more likely to extend the school day and invest in teacher training.