Voile replaces Bishop as Annex principal/superintendent

Several candidates surfaced when the Annex School District began its search.

 The task was to find a replacement after principal/superintendent Steve Bishop announced his retirement.

 The district hosted a forum on March 8 featuring its top two candidates, Kim Voile and Joe Burris, who is the fifth and sixth grade teacher at Annex. Ultimately, the district chose Voile who has 25 years of experience as an educator, the last six at Annex.

 She is working under a three-year contract at $95,000 per year, according to an April 8 report by the Malheur Enterprise.

 “We had some very high-quality candidates,” Voile said. “I’ve done a lot of administrative duties in this building … and I had done a lot of administrative-type duties as an instructional coach and as a reading specialist. I ended up managing a lot of things, especially when I was in Ontario, which is, of course, a bigger school. We (the Annex staff) work pretty close and well together, which is nice.”

 Voile, who earned a bachelor’s in education from Washington State University, is originally from Mossyrock, Wash.

 “It’s a little logging town in western Washington,” she said. “I grew up over there and graduated with 32 students in my class, so I’m well versed in being in a small school.”

 She has worked in school districts in both Washington and Oregon, beginning her career in Spokane, Wash. before moving on to Hermiston, Ore. where she taught third grade for seven years. She then transitioned to the Ontario, Ore. district where she taught first and second grade before becoming a principal intern and then a reading specialist. After 12 years, she moved on to Annex.

 Along the way, Voile, who lives in New Plymouth, completed her master’s in reading and intervention K-12 at Northwest Nazarene University.

 She has been working nonstop since the end of the school year, preparing for her new role.

 “I haven’t taken any time off since school has been out and my contract starts on the first of July 1,” Voile said. “I have been working on becoming familiar with policy and doing some updates on policies, updates on job descriptions, and books, and just trying to be really prepared. I have all of our PD (professional development) lined up for next year, just a lot of organizational things.”

 Though she will be taking on a dual role for the first time, Voile said she is confident that she can manage the combined position.

 “That’s the one thing that makes it a bit of a challenge,” she noted. “It’s a small school, but a principal and superintendent position are definitely different roles, so you have to mesh those together. As a building principal, you want to be very visible and supportive to teachers and staff, but then you also need to be taking care of everything on the other end of things.”