By Alyssa Sperrazza
Staff Writer
State House District 41 candidate Jennie Scott warned that change needs to occur sooner rather than later with 9,000 teachers “on the verge of retiring.”
Scott, a Democrat, made her comments during a recent legislative luncheon in Yukon.
“Our teacher shortage is going to get drastically worse if we don’t take bold steps now,” she said.
Scott, a teacher in El Reno, said more teachers need to be a part of the legislative process in order to fix the education problems Oklahoma is facing.
Tom Spencer; executive director of the state’s Teacher Retirement System, said Scott’s 9,000 figure isn’t accurate.
“We don’t know if someone is going to retire until someone says, ‘I want to retire,’… but I can assure you there aren’t 9,000,” Spencer said. “Right at this point in time, we’ve got about 1,200 members who have put in for retirement January 1, 2019.”
Spencer said the patterns of retirement for Oklahoma’s population are predictable and 9,000 is way too high. Plus, Spencer said, that many teachers retiring shortly after a pay raise doesn’t seem like sound logic.
“A teacher’s pension is based in large part on how much they make, so the higher the salary you have the higher pension you’re gonna have,” Spencer explained. “Well, if I was getting near retirement or eligible and I was just given a considerable rise in wage, it would make sense for that person to stick around for a few more years to get a higher pension. I don’t have proof that’s happening but it’s just something logic would dictate.”
The Piedmont-Surrey Gazette also spoke with representatives from the Oklahoma Department of Education who referred the Gazette back to the Teachers Retirement System for upcoming retirement numbers.
Scott later clarified her remarks, saying she was referencing the “9,000 [teachers] eligible to retire in the next three years… Given that we already have 1,000 unfilled positions, I am not optimistic about replacing that many teachers even in the next five years if we don’t continue to solve this problem.”
Oklahoma has faced a teacher shortage, forcing the state to give emergency certification to more than 2,000 teachers for this school year alone. This means classrooms across the state are being staffed by teachers who aren’t fully trained or prepared to teach the growing class sizes.
The Learning Policy Institute, a non-profit that focuses on teacher shortages, released a report in 2017 discussing why qualified teachers are leaving the classrooms, requiring teachers less prepared to take their place.
“While shortages tend to draw attention to recruitment issues, this report finds that 90 percent of open teaching positions are created by teachers who leave the profession,” LPI stated. “Some are retiring, but about two-thirds of teachers leave for other reasons, mostly due to dissatisfactions with teaching… Financially, the report estimates that each teacher who leaves, on average, can cost as much as $20,000 in an urban district.”
