Re-Thinking Retirement

On Monday, it seems the school board is tasked with deciding whether or not to allow several of those who turned in retirement papers to rescind their decision:

Since the retirement acceptances on February 28, 2011, there have been several persons who have inquired about the ability to rescind their retirement. The School Board needs to determine as a matter of policy if they are willing to accept such a request. If the School Board votes to adopt a policy of considering rescissions of finalized retirements they then will need to either assign a committee or delegate to administration the task of determining criteria and parameters. This process will need to be detailed; and will require advice from legal counsel to ensure that no criteria or parameters would have any adverse action on an individual or a group of individuals that may belong to a protected class of employees.

RECOMMENDATION:
Since the budget and staffing decisions have been made based on SPEA member requests for retirement and those requests were accepted on February 28, 2011, it is the recommendation of the Management Team that the School Board not create a policy or practice that will allow staff members to rescind retirements.

http://schoolboard.spasd.k12.wi.us/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=8FFL3Y54A8EC

Retiring from the Sun Prairie School District - 2011

At its February 28th meeting, the school board somewhat reluctantly voted to approve retirement requests from 28 long-time members of the teaching staff.


The sad part is that we lose more than 900 years of teaching experience. Looking for the silver lining, however, these folks are lucky enough to retire before facing the extreme agenda for our new Governor...as long as his reign shall last.  Their departure also opens the door for young teachers looking to find a job in this economy.  In addition the district stands to incur a net savings of $1M or more...which is absolutely critical given the drastic cuts being imposed on school districts.  These teachers' decision to retire will allow the district to maintain the current level and quality of education without having to make the sacrifices that nearly all other school districts face.


We wish them well.