Some tenured teachers facing involuntary placement into Denver schools may opt for early retirement in exchange for a year’s worth of pay under a new incentive plan offered by the district this year.
DPS has 130 tenured teachers whose jobs were eliminated for the 2010-11 school year and who have not yet found another classroom position.
State law says tenured teachers — those with more than three years’ experience — must be given a position.
On Tuesday, DPS principals will gather to determine where the extra teachers will be placed.
About 30 of those 130 teachers would be eligible for the early-retirement plan that would deposit a year’s worth of pay into a retirement account over a three-year period, said Shayne Spalten, director of human resources.
“The point is this is an alternative option for those teachers,” she said.
The district already had instituted a change in the direct-placement process.
Denver Superintendent Tom Boasberg in January said no teachers would be involuntarily placed into the district’s lowest-performing schools. He also promised to avoid making direct placements into schools that receive federal Title 1 funds for low-income students.
About 65 percent of DPS schools are “Title 1 schools.” In the past, those schools have received approximately 75 percent of direct- placement teachers.
DPS hopes to reduce the number of direct placements by offering the early-retirement bid to “excessed” teachers who are at least 55 years old and with 15 years of experience.
“The program will be funded largely through turnover savings,” Spalten wrote in a March 26 e-mail. “The program is entirely voluntary for participants. Individualized meetings, as well as a webinar (Web conferencing) and personal meetings with a third-party benefits provider, will be provided to all eligible employees.”
Board member Andrea Merida said she favors the early-retirement option. “The concept is great. We do have to start looking at ways to cut the budget. If we could fairly and voluntarily allow teachers a way out, let’s do that.”
Merida previously was critical of Boasberg’s plan to change the direct-placement system, saying that it was a temporary fix and the entire evaluation system needs to be adjusted first.
She threatened to force a vote on changing Boasberg’s new policy, but she shelved the motion during last month’s board meeting.
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to a reporting error, the percentage of schools in Denver
that receive federal Title 1 funds was listed as 85 percent. The correct figure is 65 percent.
