'Bittersweet' Send-Off

By Bill Morem

Jun. 9, 2008 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) --

About 1,400 years of combined experience will walk out of school classrooms across the county this summer as a bumper crop of teachers retires.

Some are doing so with incentive packages as a way for administrators to cut costs at a time when the state is reducing its budget for education. Others are experiencing a wave of older teachers retiring.

"A top-end teacher is making around $74,000 a year," said Greig Welch, assistant superintendent for personnel in Paso Robles. Bringing in younger teachers with less experience would cost the district from $39,000 to $55,000 a year, he adds.

If each of the replacements for the 20 retiring Paso Robles teachers represented a $20,000-a-year saving, Welch explained, that would be a $400,000 savings -- not an insignificant amount in the face of the looming state budget cuts.

Welch said district savings through retirements may not be known until August. Replacement-teacher costs are still a variable because the area's high cost of housing can turn off potential candidates.

Financial considerations are one impetus behind this year's rash of retirements. But an aging population among teachers -- specifically the oldest of the 76 million people born be- tween 1946 and 1964 who are dubbed baby boomers -- is another reason many are heading for the door.

For the time being, San Luis Coastal Unified School District hasn't seen a lot of bailing boomers.

"We've been fortunate with (a lack of) baby-boomer retirees," San Luis Obispo High School Principal Will Jones said. "We have a group who live here or make a sacrifice to live here."

Without an incentive package leading them into their golden years, 26 teachers are retiring from San Luis Obispo High this summer.

Of those, five teachers account for 173 years of service: Michael Aiello, a 37-year science teacher; John Durant, who spent 35 years teaching business and computer science and served as a longtime football coach; Rick Ernstrom, 39-year industrial tech instructor and coach who is known statewide for the school's stellar swimming program; Susane Rotalo, 37-year English teacher and arts maven; and Carol Stine, 25-year special education teacher who, according to Jones, has earned "a level of sainthood around here."

The 1,400 years of experience was totaled from figures given by the school districts throughout the county. It does not include San Luis Coastal Unified School District, save for the high school teachers mentioned above. San Luis Coastal of ficials could not readily provide a total on teaching years.

What concerns educators is that a perfect storm of sorts is beginning to shape up: As this group leaves the teaching profession, fewer college graduates are choosing education as a career, especially in the critical areas of math and science.

Richard J. Murnane, an economist with Harvard University's Graduate School of Education, put it this way in a June 24 Washington Post interview: "It's not that you don't have some terrifically talented people going into teaching. You do. The issue is that you don't have enough. And many are the most likely to leave teaching, because they have lots of other opportunities."

Dr. Julian Crocker, superintendent of the San Luis Obispo County Office of Education, is well aware of the need for math and science teachers, with the role of Cal Poly being a mixed blessing in filling that need.

"On the positive side," Crocker said, "Cal Poly is right here. Teacher candidates (at the university) want to stay here and that helps -- especially since we're in declining student enrollment where demand isn't great. So we have pretty good supply without too much demand."

On the down side, which ironically also reveals the depth of Cal Poly's quality curriculum, "If a student is skilled and qualified in math and science and is accepted to Cal Poly, he or she will most likely go into engineering or architecture" as opposed to teaching because of salary disparities between the public and private sectors.

And money -- or lack thereof--can be a determining factor in attracting and keeping good teachers.

Low salaries are rooted in the history of teachers' line of work, Welch said. In addition to secretarial and nursing careers, teaching was one of only a few professions available to women at one time, and their incomes were believed to be supplemental to their husbands'.

"With salaries built around a second income, there wasn't any accommodation for bread winners," he explained, "and males moving into the profession wasn't foreseen."

Although teaching has become more integrated, the profession remains heavily female: Out of about 3 million teachers nationwide, about 75 percent are women, according to the National Education Association.

"With new demands of No Child Left Behind (a federal act) and credentialing, income hasn't changed significantly," Welch said. "It's almost like we've done things backwards: We have a huge boomer group heading out and have done nothing on the supply side."

"Salary is still lagging," Crocker agreed, "but it's not as bad as it once was. The state adopted a minimum salary of $30,000 about 10 years ago, and that helped."

He said he believes a larger paycheck should be tied to a longer work year for teachers -- somewhere between 200 and 210 days in the classroom as opposed to the current 185 days. More days in class equals a larger check.

The sticking point is cost, and there doesn't appear to be much fiscal lubrication on the horizon.

California ranks 46th out of 50 states in per-pupil expenditures, and school administrators say Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed budget for 2008-09 will further erode classroom funding while turning off future teachers.

"All the layoffs around the state may discourage young teachers-to-be from going into the profession," Jones said. "Hundreds, if not thousands, of teachers may be laid off because of state budget cuts. It's up to the state to get it squared away."

As to this year's crop of retirees, Jones said it's a bittersweet experience.

"We're happy to see them look forward to retirement, but we will miss them."

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