By Annelise Hanshaw
Missouri’s school districts are struggling not just with a teacher shortage but a scarcity of bus drivers, custodians and other essential personnel.
The crisis has led larger school districts to consider adopting four-day school weeks to address teacher retention and recruitment problems.
Sen. Rusty Black, R-Chillicothe, has been working on one way to address the problem for four years. And last week, the governor signed a bill into law, set to take effect Aug. 28, that will allow retired public-school staff to work full-time for a district for up to four years without losing retirement benefits.
“It’s not like on Aug. 29 everything’s gonna be fine… but it is going to have an impact to help schools continue to get along somehow until there’s a better solution or they can find people to come back to schools and work again,” Black told The Independent.
Prior to Black’s legislation, teachers and non-certificated staff could work full-time for only two years post-retirement without losing benefits.
The bill includes a provision to help prevent too many staff from taking early retirement, limiting school districts to 30 retired teachers working full time.
Black’s legislation also addresses non-certificated positions, like bus drivers and janitors. Retired school employees can work in positions that don’t require a teaching certificate for more hours. Previously, they were capped at earning 60% of the minimum teacher’s salary, which would amount to $15,000 for those without a master’s degree.
They will now be allowed to earn 133% of the Social Security earning’s limit for those not at full retirement age, or about $28,250, until June 30 of 2028. On that date, the limit will decrease to 100% of the earning’s exemption, which is currently $21,240.
While this may help in the short term, I suspect this amounts to a bandaid on a bullet wound.
ReplyDeleteThe central problem is that young people are not entering the teaching profession, or are not staying long if they do. I think this comes down to money, but there are other factors as well, e.g. teaching is not the respected career it once was and much of the autonomy teachers had in the 20th century has been removed from the profession. Add in the politics sitting on top of everything these days and the resounding question is "why bother?"
And indeed, if I am a new graduate teacher and I can find a job on a factory floor paying $25/hour with 10 hours/week mandatory overtime, my gross income is now $75k/yr. With a college degree, I can even get on the management track in the factory. How much faster will I be able to get out from under my student loan debt at that pay rate vs. teaching and starting at 35-40k/yr and capping out at 75 with a masters degree? How much easier will it be for me to afford a home? Now ask yourself the same question only assume I can get 30 hours/week at $18/hr working fast food...
Until the pay problem is addressed (at minimum, leave aside my other concerns), how can we expect to find new teachers to fill positions left behind by folks who have aged out? The stop-gap is to get teachers to work longer, but let's not kid ourselves, this solution has an expiration date as the pool of teachers to draw from dwindles as well.
@Randy, would love your comment on this, since you've been in- and out- of this world.
The pubs need to get off the schoolboard and out of the classroom. How can you teach with a group of maga-fied karen's threatening teachers and their families. Why would anyone want to teach when the pub war on crt, lgbtq, and the denial of culpability in slavery,and other shameful acts of white supremacy throughout American history, force teachers to teach "alternative facts" so as to not guilt and shame white students? Democracy is being threatened by these losers.
ReplyDeleteMom's for Liberty is a threat to democracy.
ReplyDelete@6:02, Mom's [sic] for Liberty didn't spring into existence in a vacuum. These people can vote and petition their elected representatives for redress, same as you can. And they can get funding and organizational help from wealthy donors, same as your side can go to the Pritzkers for it.
ReplyDeleteThe only threat to democracy here is your attitude.
Take a look 828, you're getting played by a moral midget, (trump), and a war on diversity and truth that history proves is a complete failure. You can't see the truth because you've been blinded by all the maga fear-based talking points that the marginally intelligent, less educated members of society take as truth. Clinically peer reviewed studies show life expectancy in red states is nearly 2 years less than blue states. Hmmmm....
ReplyDeleteThe 10 worst states to live and work per cnbc: #2 oklahoma #6 missouri,#9 Arkansas. All red, all maga, all bigoted losers.
ReplyDelete