Attractive retirement depletes schools of educators

Incentives offered by the Missouri education retirement system are draining school districts of their most experienced educators by tempting many to leave the system in their early 50s.

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is calling the problem a major concern and plans to address it in an annual session next month.

The issue is hitting close to home at some Southeast Missouri schools, with several administrators in their 50s retiring this year. Cape Girardeau superintendent Dan Steska will retire in June at age 52.

"Because the benefits are so good, you lose experienced educators who are often times at the peak of their career," he said. "It is really detrimental, particularly at a time when fewer people are going into the profession. It creates a hardship."

Janet Goeller, director of teacher recruitment and retention for DESE, said the problem is convincing new educators to take the retirees' places.

"We are working now to adopt programming to help us retain more teachers," she said. "The biggest concern is that one-third of our teachers leave within the first five years of teaching. We have the teachers and can't keep them."

One of the most tempting factors in educators' decisions to retire is, when they retire under the state's Public School Retirement System, they can make up to 90 percent of their regular salary without working.

As long as retirees do not work more than 550 hours in Missouri public elementary and secondary schools -- excluding Kansas City and St. Louis schools -- they can keep their full benefits. If they choose to work full-time in education, they can do so in four-year universities, the Kansas City or St. Louis districts or in out-of-state districts.

Steska is looking for a superintendent position in Illinois. He is not the only local educator looking to continue work after retirement.

Harold Tilley, principal of the Career Technology Center in Cape Girardeau, will retire in June at 54. He'll seek employment outside of the district.

"I feel like I've accomplished all of my goals," Tilley said. "I want to work. I'm really too young to not be working."

Tilley said he is leaving the door open to career opportunities, but might choose something in his original field of study -- business.

Under the Missouri Public School Retirement System, educators become eligible for normal retirement by falling into one of three categories:

Age 60 with at least five years of service.

Any age with at least 30 years of service.

Age plus service equals or exceeds 80.

Educators also can retire with modified benefits or take early retirement by meeting lesser requirements.

The number of Missouri Public School Retirement System members who retired in 2001 was more than double the number 10 years before. Their average age in 2001 was 56.7.

Although more educators are retiring from their first careers at younger ages, the trend is not limited to education. According to Social Security Administration statistics, the average retirement age is dropping. Currently it's between 62 and 63.

Fifty-one-year-old Keith Kight, social studies teacher and assistant principal at Scott City High School, said his younger brother retired from Proctor & Gamble two years ago.

"People in the private sector are retiring just as young or younger than those in education," he said.

Kight will retire from education at the end of this year, after three decades of teaching.

I'm going to try to work in another capacity, maybe part-time teaching," he said.

Former first-grade teacher Carol Reimann says she is proof that people can still work full-time after retirement and enjoy it.

Reimann, 55, taught in the Cape Girardeau school district for 33 years before retiring last July.

She is now the assistant director of the Regional Professional Development Center at Southeast Missouri State University.

"I'm not Betty Crocker -- I can't just stay at home," Reimann said. "I wanted to stay in education, and this was the way to do it and still keep all of my retirement benefits."

Scott City superintendent Roger Tatum and Oak Ridge, Mo., superintendent Cheri Fuemmeler will both retire in June.

Tatum and Fuemmeler are both 55 years old and will continue working part time in their respective districts after retirement.

"I want to stay around to work with the building plan and help Diann Bradshaw when she takes over my position," Tatum said. "And I don't want to leave in the middle of our building project."

Fuemmeler said she also wants to stay because of building projects in her district.

hkronmueller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 128