Why Retired Teachers Should Not Be Supply-Teaching

The following letter from today's Toronto Star should be read by all retired teachers:

In a recent discussion with a teacher who is considering retirement, he said that he would make more money retiring than staying on. He figures with his pension and supply teaching at $250 a day, he’ll be better off retiring.

In my board, when a teacher retires, they are invited to put their name on the supply list. And yet the supply list has not yet been opened to new young teachers. I don’t bother to go to the retirement functions at the end of the year anymore because they are all back supply teaching the next year. Teachers who retired 10 years ago are still doing supply teaching.

My child has just gone through five years of university education to become a teacher. What will happen to him once he is done? He’ll probably end up working in a bar somewhere or in a local grocery store or, worse, have to take his enthusiasm for teaching overseas, because he can’t get on the supply list to teach here in his own country.

Meanwhile, people like my colleague will be not only collecting a pension and a hefty salary, but taking a job away from someone trying to start their career. And still universities are welcoming thousands of students into their teaching programs every year with the promise of a great career when they are done. Aspiring teachers should be discouraged from this profession as there is no chance of a job right now or in the foreseeable future.

Also these former teachers are not accountable for their performance. There is no reason for them to prove themselves. As someone once said, “what will they do, fire me?” The worst teachers my children have had were retired teachers coming back to fulfil long-term openings (LTOs). This is not fair to the students who have every right to expect that they will receive the best instruction they should have.

We need these bright, young people in our schools. They are keen and they are excited about teaching, but they are not being given the chance because “double-dippers” are taking their spots. These people have retired — they are not forced to retire, they do so freely because they have had enough of teaching so why are they coming back?

In no other profession would someone retire and then be allowed to return to collect both pension and a hefty wage (by the way, I don’t even make as much money as these retired teachers do on the supply list).

Why doesn’t the government stop this practice? Doesn’t it make sense to bring the young would-be teachers into our schools, and at half the cost, so that they can pay back their government loans and bring their enthusiasm into the schools?

Does it make sense that these “retired” teachers are coming back to collect both pension and their supply pay? Stop the greed of these retired teachers and help our young people get a job in the profession they love and give the students the education they deserve.

N.J. Settle, Georgetown

When Is A Decision Not A Decision?

In a move that can only be seen as prompted by fear of political retribution from retired teachers instead of concern for struggling new teachers, the Ontario Government has changed the number of days retired instructors can teach without having their pensions suspended. The current law allows for 95 days for three years, followed by 20 days a year thereafter.

The Liberal Government, in its wisdom, will now allow retirees 50 days per year until, well, until pensioners decide they don't want to do it anymore. However, the change will be reviewed in 2015, after the province has had time to collect pertinent data.

Read all about this shameful decision in today's Globe and Mail article, reproduced below:

Kate Hammer and Caroline Alphonso
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail Published on Monday, May. 10, 2010 7:49PM EDT Last updated on Tuesday, May. 11, 2010 6:27AM EDT

For the first time, Ontario will closely track the supply teaching work done by retirees, after a Globe and Mail investigation revealed a system rife with loopholes that cost taxpayers millions of dollars each year.

Under new rules announced Monday, many pensioners will see an increase in the number of supply days they are allowed to work while the government and its teachers union collect data and prepare to re-evaluate the limits again in 2015.

As of 2012, all retirees will be allowed to work 50 days a school year while collecting their pensions, compared to the current rule of 95 days for three years and 20 days thereafter.

The province and its teachers union promised to review the limits after The Globe’s nine-month investigation, published in April, found that the Ontario government is spending millions of dollars bringing pensioners back into the classroom. The 20-year-old limits, which were put in place to address a long-evaporated teacher shortage, meant that young grads were struggling to find work while retirees padded their pension incomes.

“The 50-day limit is going to open up more opportunities, I think, for the new graduates because 50 days is less than a term,” said Minister of Education Leona Dombrowsky, who added that many long-term occasional supply contracts last a full term or semester and that under the new limits retirees will be prevented from working many of these jobs.

The biggest change is that the number of days that retirees work will now be monitored, as opposed to the old system that relied on self-reporting. The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan also will begin compiling and reporting data once the new limit is in full swing, in 2012. The data collection will continue over three school years, and a review will begin in 2015.

“I am happy that we are going to review it in 2015 and I’m happy that we will actually have some data … that will be very helpful and useful and instructive,” Ms. Dombroswky said. “I think for all the people that have been at the table that has been a struggle, in terms of understanding what is a fair number, what is reasonable.”

But those lobbying for changes to the policy expressed skepticism that the new limits would keep retirees out of long-term contracts, especially when the change will actually increase the amount most pensioners are allowed to work.

Through multiple access-to-information requests and appeals, The Globe found that retirees often earn twice as much as their newly certified colleagues, and the province’s 10 largest school boards alone could have saved $16.7-million last school year by offering long-term contracts to new teachers instead of pensioners.
When the new rules come into effect in 2012, loopholes will enable retirees to finish out the calendar month after they have worked their 50th day, padding their pensions with contribution-free income.

“It’s disgraceful. They’ve certainly sold out the interests of young teachers looking for work,” said Malcolm Buchanan, a retired teacher in Hamilton and former general-secretary of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation. “The 50 days, which may well go to 70 days depending on what day of the month the 50th day comes up, it going to just make the problem even worse.”

For years retired teachers were limited to working 20 days while collecting their pensions. Then in 1990, in the face of a dire teacher shortage, the limits were raised to 95 days for three post-retirement working years.

Twenty years later, there are two newly certified teachers for every job in Ontario, but decreasing the limits or closing loopholes would be seen as “impinging on people’s livelihoods,” according to Reno Melatti, president of the Ontario Teachers’ Federation.

Fifty, “it’s not a perfect number, but it’s between zero and 95,” he said. “Some may say it was an increase … but it’s a compromise to get some information and clear data and at the same time respond to some of the concerns.”

The current limits only apply to teachers returning to the classroom, but as of next school year, they will also apply to any retired teachers working for the ministry. Neither the union nor the ministry could provide the number of retirees on the government payroll.

RETIRED TEACHERS AND THEIR PENSIONS
• The 10 school boards spent $108.3-million on retired teachers returning to work as long-term and daily supply teachers in the 2008-09 school year.
• The boards would have saved $16.7-million if they gave long-term supply contracts to recently certified teachers instead of retirees.
• The average day rate for a retiree on a long-term supply contract with the York Catholic District School Board was $432.69, compared to $227.36 for the average teacher certified within the past three years.
• Retirees worked 2,861 supply assignments for the Toronto District School Board last year, while new graduates received 1,638 assignments.
• About 6,500 new jobs become available each year, according to the Ontario College of Teachers, but the college certified 12,774 new members in 2008.

Ontario schools crack down on retirees who ‘double-dip’ with supply jobs

Here is the latest results of the Globe and Mail's investigation into retired teachers 'double-dipping', thereby depriving new teachers of work and costing the school boards, i.e., the taxpayer, needless extra millions of dollars:

Globe investigation revealed having pensioners return to teach has cost the education system millions of dollars

Caroline Alphonso and Kate Hammer

From Monday's Globe and Mail Published on Sunday, Apr. 25, 2010 9:02PM EDT Last updated on Monday, Apr. 26, 2010 3:43AM EDT

While the Ontario government works to address the disproportionate amount of supply work that goes to retired teachers, some school boards are taking the matter into their own hands.

After realizing it was losing millions of dollars by replacing teachers in the $60,000 pay-range with retired teachers who earned more than $80,000, the Windsor-Essex Catholic district school board has stopped adding retirees to its supply list.

“You can spin it any way you want to, but it's wrong – allowing retirees to double-dip is wrong,” said Paul Picard, superintendent of human resources for the board.

The government last week vowed to crack down on the rules around pensioners returning to supply-teach after a Globe and Mail investigation revealed that a system rife with loopholes is costing Ontario taxpayers millions of dollars. A 20-year-old policy meant to deal with teacher shortage that has since evaporated allows retirees to teach as much as half the school year, or 95 days, in the first three post-retirement working years and 20 days in following years.

Mr. Picard said that he was always under the impression that the loosened work limits were temporary, and that the rule would return to the 20-day maximum that was in place before 1990. That never happened, and retirees take a big slice of the supply-work pie in some school districts.

In British Columbia , a province that, like Ontario, has grappled with tensions around retirees taking supply-teaching jobs from new teachers, one superintendent said retired teachers should only return to the classroom when there’s no one else with the expertise to do the work.

Keven Elder, superintendent of the school district in Saanich, B.C., said his schools only hire retired teachers to cover subject areas where there’s a shortage, and they regularly monitor the amount of work retirees receive.

“I would advise that the reasons for re-engagement of a retired teacher be clear and limited,” Mr. Elder said. “To me it isn’t about limiting the number of days, it’s about limiting the conditions upon which that person is reemployed as a teacher, and then adhering to those requirements.”

Sources say that one of the options being discussed in Ontario involves permitting retirees to work 50 days in the first three years, and 20 days indefinitely. The government and the teachers’ federation have not indicated whether changes are coming to the self-policing system and loopholes that allow teachers to work beyond any allotted days without their pensions being affected.

The Saanich school district isn’t alone in giving preference to working teachers over retirees on its supply list. Some school divisions in Saskatchewan will only hire retirees if no other substitutes are available. And in Prince Edward Island, retirees who take on long-term supply-teaching contracts have their pension payments stopped during the time of their employment.

The concerns raised in Ontario over retirees padding their pensions and pushing other supply teachers out of the classroom have also been voiced in B.C. A task force formed by the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation last year found the concerns were misplaced and that denying retirees work was ageist. The heart of any struggles supply teachers face getting work, the task force concluded, was that some districts placed too many of them on supply lists.

At his board, Mr. Elder said that retirees are generally denied a chance to teach if working teachers have similar qualifications. Teachers call in their own replacements, but if the district discovers that a retiree is getting much of the work, teachers are asked to look at other candidates.

“If there are a large number of people out there with your qualifications ready to fill in as you retire, you should expect that when you retire, you won’t be working any more. To me that’s just what a dynamic work force is all about,” Mr. Elder said.

A nine-month Globe and Mail investigation found supply assignments in Ontario were not divvied up evenly among the work force. Through multiple access-to-information requests and appeals to 10 of Ontario's largest boards, The Globe revealed last week that retirees worked just as many days in daily supply positions as newly certified teachers, all while picking up their government-subsidized pension cheques averaging $40,000 a year. The biggest school boards alone spent $108.3-million in 2008-09 on hiring retired teachers.

Although both groups earn the same in daily supply roles, retirees earned double the new teachers' rate for long-term assignments. The 10 boards would have saved $16.7-million in the past academic year had they placed new teachers in the classroom.

The Plight of Young Teachers Today

In Ontario, the various faculties of education are continuing to churn out 7500 new teachers per year, despite the fact that there are very few jobs available. This, along with the selfish practice of retired teachers taking supply and long-term contracts, means lean times for young teachers. Below is another article from the Globe and Mail series dealing with the scourge of retired teachers who won't give up the classroom.

Few openings for young teachers

7,500 more new teachers produced each year than there are retirements, official says

Caroline Alphonso and Kate Hammer

From Monday's Globe and Mail Published on Monday, Apr. 19, 2010 4:35AM EDT Last updated on Monday, Apr. 19, 2010 4:36AM EDT

In his search for work, Sid Nurcombe has been forced to cast a wide net – he is contemplating a move to South Korea.

The 27-year-old teachers’ college graduate has been struggling for a year to win one of the highly coveted spots on a school boards’ supply list. Openings are few and far between, and despite applying to two different boards near his parents’ home in Shelburne, Ont., he remains unemployed. While younger teachers on the supply lists aspire to move on to full-time positions, retirees can linger there for years.

“For me, it’s a huge impediment to getting in the system,” said Mr. Nurcombe, who added that he has a “significant” debt and still lives with his parents.

Young graduates need experience to land a full-time job, but supply-teaching opportunities often go to retirees padding their pensions with contribution-free income. Part of the modest income of the young teachers that do make it onto the supply list goes toward a pension plan that’s facing an imbalance: For each beneficiary, there are only 1.5 paying members, and that ratio is expected to decline to 1.2 within the next decade.

“It’s a real morale buster,” said Laura Drexler, a 37-year-old supply teacher who lives in a one-bedroom student apartment in Waterloo, Ont. Despite the broad expertise of three university degrees and her willingness to drive between three school boards to find work, Ms. Drexler earns a quarter of what she could earn full-time.

“There aren’t the jobs out there. There really aren’t,” she said.

Frank McIntyre, manager of human resources at the Ontario College of Teachers, said a number of changes designed to help alleviate a teacher shortage in the early 1990s, have been left unchecked for too long. “Now we’re producing about 7,500 more new teachers than there are retirements every year,” he said. “Nobody has put the brakes on.”

And there’s more at risk than just the livelihoods of aspiring teachers. Annie Kidder, a spokeswoman for the parent group People for Education, said there needs to be a balance between experience and fresh energy in the classroom.

“New teachers bring new ideas, perhaps more energy,” Ms. Kidder said. “They may not be quite so worn.”

The Problems of Retired Teachers Continuing to Teach

I have written in the past about my heartfelt opposition to teaching after retirement, mainly because it deprives young people of much-needed opportunities to get started in their careers. This past week the Globe and Mail has had a series of articles addressing this issue, the first of which I am reproducing below:

Ontario school boards squander $16.7-million by hanging on to retirees April 16, 2010.

Caroline Alphonso and Kate Hammer
From Monday's Globe and Mail Published on Monday, Apr. 19, 2010 4:00AM EDT Last updated on Wednesday, Apr. 21, 2010 11:31AM EDT

Ontario’s largest cash-strapped school boards squandered $16.7-million in the last academic year by enabling retirees to pad their pensions with supply-teaching work rather than hiring new teachers, a Globe and Mail investigation has found.

Retired teachers working in 10 school boards, representing half the student population, collected $108.3-million in the 2008-09 school year from taxpayers on top of their government-subsidized pensions, taking advantage of a system rife with loopholes that leaves new teachers scrambling for crumbs.

The investigation revealed widespread overspending, with boards favouring retirees over new teachers for supply assignments at a higher pay scale that, in some cases, doubled the cost to the taxpayer. One retiree working in the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board worked a total of 106 days in 2008-09, earning an estimated $47,000 on top of what is already one of the most generous pensions in the country.

Other provinces, such as Prince Edward Island, have reined in such largesse by stopping pension payments when a teacher takes a long-term supply assignment. But in Ontario, even as Premier Dalton McGuinty has been lambasting postsecondary institutions for loose spending, the policing system to make sure retirees aren’t milking the education budget relies on an honour system.

The issue has angered new teachers who can’t get work, and sparked ongoing discussions between the Ontario Teachers’ Federation and the government – yet nothing has changed. Even the architect of the original policy that allowed retired teachers to work more supply days while collecting their pensions recognizes the time for it has come and gone.

Minister of Education Leona Dombrowsky acknowledged the current policy poses challenges, particularly for new teachers, but added that retirees bring much-needed expertise to the job. She said parents have expressed concern that an inexperienced supply teacher doesn’t have the necessary skills to lead a classroom.

“I’m not going to debate your numbers other than to say sometimes behind the numbers there are very particular situations and circumstances that might require a board to consider engaging someone who is retired,” she said. “I think that both the Ontario Teachers’ Federation and the province are aware that there are areas where we have challenges ... And we are working with the teachers’ federation to see how we can address those going forward.”

But those longing for change are tired of waiting while school boards overspend by millions of dollars each year.

“The system has been abused by some retirees,” said Malcolm Buchanan, a retired teacher in Hamilton and former general-secretary of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, who has been petitioning the province to change the rules. “A number of people are at fault here. School boards are at fault for hiring retirees in the first place. The second fault is they don’t monitor the number of days retirees work ... And [at fault are] individual members who take advantage of the rules.”


The current system was designed two decades ago to address a teacher shortage. Prior to 1990, retired teachers were allowed to teach a maximum of 20 days a year before their pensions were affected. A change allowed for 95 days in the first three working years after retirement, and 20 days indefinitely thereafter. The shortage of the 1990s, however, has long evaporated – for every job, there are about two newly certified teachers graduating each year.

Chris Ward, the province's former minister of education who introduced the bill that led to that change, believes the policy is no longer needed and should be abandoned.
“[With] the current environment in Ontario, I would have to say that it makes little sense to me that retired teachers would be able to spend as many as 95 days in the classroom,” said Mr. Ward, who served as minister in the David Peterson government. “Frankly that’s just keeping young teachers out of the system and we need more young teachers coming in.”

The Globe’s nine-month investigation, which included multiple access-to-information requests, has for the first time determined the practice’s cost to taxpayers. The Toronto District School Board, for example, doled out almost twice as many supply assignments to retirees than to new teachers in 2008-09. These veterans earned double the new teachers’ rate for long-term assignments without paying into the pension plan. (Both groups earn the same for daily supply work, the bulk of which goes to retirees).

Had it hired new teachers for those jobs instead, the TDSB could have saved $7.6-million dollars. The Peel District School Board could have banked $3.4-million and both York Region boards could have set aside more than $1.4-million each, the data reveal. The total savings amounted to more than $16.7-million for 10 of Ontario’s 72 boards. Retirees in long-term contracts, to fill in for a teacher who is, for example, ill or on maternity leave, earn, on average, $400 a day, because pay grids negotiated between boards and the unions take into account a teachers expertise and years of experience.

According to the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, retired teachers in the province make on average $40,000 a year, and generally bow out of the 9-to-5 grind by age 57. Retirees also don’t see pension deductions from their paycheques – a further drain on the pension plan into which taxpayers make half the contributions.

The onus is on teachers to declare when they have crossed the yearly limit of days worked, and their pension cheques should be stopped. The OTPP said that there were 629 pension suspensions last year, and while the majority were self-declared, it declined to divulge how it tracked down the others.

“Self-reporting was adopted … because it was considered to be the same concept as income tax , which sees individuals being responsible for filing their own returns,” said spokeswoman Deborah Allan. She added that procedures are regularly reviewed.
Ron Crocco, principal at Jean Vanier Catholic High School in Richmond Hill, Ont., said school administrators often seek out retired teachers for their familiarity and experience. “I’m torn in some ways because I want to give the new teachers some work, and yet, when I have a person who is going to be off, I want to make sure that I have someone who can teach the classes,” Mr. Crocco said.

In the minds of many retirees, the perks are warranted.

“If you couldn’t supply teach, most of us wouldn’t retire because you just can’t afford to go cold. It’s a huge drop in pay,” said retired teacher Corrine Donnelly, who is in her sixth year of substitute teaching in Bradford, after working full-time for 32 years. “You’re assuming that we can all afford never to work again,” she said.

She said she was passionate about teaching, and justified her decision to keep working postretirement. “I did retire early from my own job. I did free up a permanent job for somebody.”

Teaching After Retirement?

As mentioned in my last post, I am opposed to retired teachers taking up supply positions, assuming the supply exceeds the demand. What follows is an article I wrote about a year before I retired, stating the reasons for my position. It appeared in a local teacher publication, and the response I got was, shall we say, spirited.


Teacher Retirement

What I am about to write, I know, will not be well-received by many colleagues of my generation, i.e., those who are planning to retire in the near future. Indeed, were it not for the fact that this is my last year of teaching, undoubtedly I would lack the moral authority to assert the following: in my view, doing supply work in retirement, with one notable exception, is wrong, and does a grave disservice to recent graduates in education.

How did I arrive at this conclusion? I’m sure that if we think back to the dawning of our own careers, many of us will see parallels to the situations that new teachers face today: a dearth of opportunities, except in select disciplines, and the very real prospect of having to relocate far from family and friends. That was certainly my experience, and it is not one that I am particularly keen to see young people face today.

Since stable employment eluded me in Ontario, I moved to and taught in Manitoba for many years, returning in 1988, one of the most compelling reasons being that my wife and I did not want our children growing up with almost no contact with their grandparents and other extended family members. It was only after toiling in supply work that I was able to secure full-time employment as teachers, especially department heads, got to know me and my work; as well, I was able to see the job postings in staff rooms, thereby giving me an edge over outside applicants.

Today, our young people are being denied such opportunities. When was the last time a new teacher did supply work in your school? It has been more than two years at my place of employment. To remedy this situation clearly will require retiring teachers to adopt a new perspective and be prepared to make sacrifices. Certainly, I know many anticipating retirement who say they will need the money that supply work pays to augment their pensions. My response to that is simple: either defer your retirement, be prepared to live a little more modestly, or begin a second career. Do not fall into a comforting rationalization about how students will be especially well-served because of your vast experience. The bald truth is that the vast majority of supply work entails babysitting or monitoring, not actual teaching. Nor should you feel that you somehow deserve to teach after retirement because you have paid your dues. What would make any of us think we are owed anything by the system?

I mentioned at the outset that there really is only one exception to the opinion I have expressed. That is when a teacher, either through maternity leave or illness, will be off the job for the remainder of a semester. Assuming the illness or leave occurs sometime after the semester has begun, it is, I believe, highly desirable to have an experienced (presumably recently retired) teacher assume duties to ensure continuity in the classroom. It would simply be too difficult for most new teachers to master the curriculum in a short time and provide that continuity. Indeed, last year at my school two of my former colleagues, whom I hold in very high esteem, did exactly that, and the students were indeed well-served by their conscientious professionalism.

The sentiments I’ve expressed in this article will undoubtedly strike some as either harsh or cold-hearted. I think they are neither. It is only when we admit to ourselves that we’ve had a pretty good run that we can begin to recognize it is time to yield to the younger generation who, once they attain full-time employment, undoubtedly will acquit themselves in the job with honour and vigor, just as we did when we started out, so long ago.

The Search for Meaning

They say that when people reach a certain stage in life, they look for things to make their lives meaningful. Throughout my years as a teacher, that search for meaning eluded me, partly because the job both haunted and consumed me, leaving little time for engagement with the larger world, and partly due to my belief that whatever I accomplished in the classroom had less to do with me and more to do with the innate talents and discipline of my students. Now into the second year of my retirement, I find both my interests and the focus of this blog diverging from its initial purpose of offering observations and commentary about education and moving into areas of which I feel an educated person should be aware. You might say that I am now trying to reengage with the larger world.

To that end, I suspect that more of my entries henceforth will be eclectic in nature, reflective of this search for meaning, although I have no intention of allowing them to devolve into maudlin self-indulgence. (I’ll leave that to people like Shelagh Rogers and her execrable program on C.B.C. radio, Sounds Like Canada.) To mark this shift, I would like to begin a series on how we, as individuals, through either acts of omission or commission, can have a positive impact on the world. The first act relates to retired teachers.

While I realize the situation varies tremendously depending upon where you live, in my school board, there are many retired teachers who do supply teaching and take long term occasional positions. The problem with this is that it deprives a large number of young people the opportunity of working and making themselves known to administrators. One young man I know, for example, who had worked for about three years on contract at my school, is now on the supply list but gets called an average of once or twice a month, while many retired teachers drawing healthy pensions are called much more regularly, owing to the fact that they are well-known due to their former status.

So my suggestion is a simple one: when you retire, unless your board is chronically short of supply teachers, make a young person’s life a little easier and future employment prospects brighter by consciously choosing NOT to supplant them; elect NOT to be put on the supply list. I have never regretted my decision to make way for a new generation of young people.

If I can find the file, in my next post I would like to provide an amended version of an article I wrote on this topic about a year before I retired.