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Albuquerque Public Schools Superintendent Beth Everitt is against moving problem teachers from troubled Polk Middle School - or any other school for that matter.

No school should be burdened with another school's problems, she said.

"We would never move bad teachers to another school," she said. That practice is known as the "march of the lemons" and won't be tolerated in APS, she said.

Everitt reacted strongly to Polk Middle School Principal Theresa Baca's suggestion, detailed in Wednesday's Tribune, that some teachers needed to leave Polk for the school to make progress and improve student achievement.

"Moving teachers is not a plan," Everitt said.

Polk Middle School, 2220 Raymac Road S.W., has struggled with low test scores, staff divisiveness and principal turnover for years. When Baca was hired in 2003, she was the fifth principal in six years.

Baca was removed as Polk's principal after submitting a reform plan that would have moved teachers who did not sign a commitment letter to carry out the reforms.

The plan was rejected by Everitt's administration. Instead of teachers moving, Baca and Vice Principal Ben Bustos were reassigned to other schools.

Baca and several staff members defend the plan as an instrument for forming a staff of committed teachers.

"We were giving them a chance to reflect on themselves and decide if they could commit to the plan," said Polk's instructional coach Michael Rulon, who helped develop the plan.

Rulon said the template for the plan was based on a Rhode Island school that has made academic gains after replacing 80 of its 120 teachers.

"We weren't saying there were a bunch of bad teachers that had to be moved" from Polk, Rulon said. "The key element to our plan was getting the right people in place to carry out the vision for Polk."

In the district's shuffle of principals involving 26 schools, the idea was to get a leader who best fit each school, he said. "We were asking to do the same thing for Polk."

The plan made it clear that teachers who did not sign a commitment letter needed to find other jobs in the district.

State options for schools like Polk that have failed year after year to raise test scores include reconstitution of the staff.

No school in New Mexico, however, had chosen that bold option until Polk developed its plan, state officials said.

"The Polk plan was not a plan," Everitt said. "We have a process for removing bad teachers."

The district's process is the responsibility of the principal, who must identify teachers for an intensive evaluation that can lead to termination. Once a teacher is placed on intensive evaluation, he or she cannot transfer to another school until the process is concluded, Everitt said.

There are a handful of teachers on intensive evaluation districtwide, said Ellen Bernstein, president of the Albuquerque Teachers Federation.

The negotiated agreement between the union and the district details a nine-step process for addressing unsatisfactory job performance for teachers.

The process applies to tenured teachers who have at least three years with the district. The process begins with assistance for teachers who do not improve and generally takes at least a full school year to complete.

Often, the process takes two years and "is cumbersome and tedious," said Pat Gilberto, president of the Albuquerque Public Schools Principals Association.

"There's always the hope that they (the bad teachers) will voluntarily move" out of the school, Gilberto said.

Eva Vigil, Kit Carson Elementary School's principal, was promoted to Polk and will be expected to evaluate teachers and put them on intensive evaluation if the need arises, Everitt said.

"That's the principal's job," she said. "Every classroom needs a quality teacher."