Teachers staying after retirement bell

By JOY L. WOODSON - jwoodson@thestate.com

Fewer than eligible are leaving, making things easier for Columbia-area districts

Columbia-area districts are seeing far fewer teachers leaving the classroom this year than were eligible for retirement.

This is a welcome reprieve for district officials, who could have been looking at replacing as many as 500 teachers, or roughly 7 percent of the teaching work force. Instead, many teachers chose not to retire or to continue — in some way — as working retirees.

District officials from seven of the eight Columbia-area districts reported 243 teachers have decided to retire this year.

The largest impact is in Richland 1, where about 111 of its 1,700 teachers are retiring.

Richland 1’s Beryl Brooks-Goines, who handles employment, said the district will work through the summer to fill the positions.

A large number of retirements can hamper continuity of programs, but new teachers are quick to learn, Brooks-Goines said.

“Just as people go out the door, we have new teachers come in,” she said. “It’s almost like a life cycle.”

Overall, the largest number of vacancies are for math, science and foreign-language teachers, traditionally the most difficult positions for districts to fill.

Kershaw County faced losing about 100 of its nearly 770 teachers, but only 10 decided to go.

“We do regret losing them, because they take with them a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience that we could have continued to benefit from in the district,” said Connie Long, Kershaw County’s assistant superintendent for human resources. “But, at the same time, we understand their needs and their desires to explore different things.”

Long attributes the high retention to quality of life and job satisfaction.

Having many stay, Long added, means those teachers bring confidence to their jobs and relationships with students.

Smaller districts also saw very few teachers retire. Officials said Wednesday that just five teachers in Lexington 3 and three teachers in Lexington 4 gave up their posts.

While Lexington 4 had few teachers who were eligible, officials in Lexington 3 previously said as many as 55 teachers could have retired because of age or years of service.

Robert Williams, Lexington 3’s assistant superintendent for personnel, was thrilled at the district’s ability to retain veteran educators.

Because the district is small — just 2,200 students — there’s not much money to lure new teachers, Williams added.

“Our salaries are not the highest in Lexington County. We try to compete, but still we’re not the highest. Our folks aren’t staying because of the high salaries, I can tell you that.”

Reach Woodson at (803) 771-8692.