St. Louis Breaks Up Troubled H.S. at Midyear

Accomplished seniors to finish school year on college campus.

In a move signaling the profound change in store for the St. Louis public schools, the superintendent has broken up the district’s most troubled high school in the middle of the year, creating a separate school for the freshmen and placing the most accomplished seniors on a college campus.

Superintendent Creg E. Williams, who began his tenure nine months ago, billed last week’s changes at Vashon High School as the first step in overhauling a district long plagued by financial and academic problems. But he said the problems at Vashon could not wait until his districtwide plans come to fruition.

“For me, it was a question of, do I wait an entire year and risk losing them, or intervene now? I decided to intervene now,” he...