Well, now I am a bit furious. For the past 11 years, I have been doing the job of 2 teachers. Our program has 1 social studies teacher, 1 English teacher, and me, who is responsible for science and math. I have consistently had almost double the number of students as the English teacher, and 25-50% more than the social studies teacher. I have been asking to have either a math or science teacher added to our staff for about 10 years. But my administration has consistently said no, while continuing to add even more and more responsibilities to my plate every single year.
This year was the breaking point. My workload more than doubled this year, with the addition of 2 additional programs, and a restructuring of how they expected me to do my normal duties. However, I had just turned 62, and so I went to my immediate assistant principal and explained to him that I was not willing to do this any longer, and that I had complained before, and not only had I been ignored, but I had my work increased as well. I told him that if one of 3 things were to happen, I would be willing to stay, but if not, I needed to move on. The first two options they had were to hire either a math teacher or a science teacher (keep in mind, the math teacher responsibilities are to teach EVERY high school math class, and the science teacher is to teach EVERY high school science class that is offered.) I was informed that the corporation was actually cutting back on positions throughout the district, so there was almost no possibility they would create a new position and hire someone for it. The third option would be to hand over the Credit Recovery portion of our program’s duties back to the individual high schools. (We currently have about 300 students from 3 different high schools who take our classes to recover grades or due to scheduling conflicts) I was told that also, due to the cutbacks, that wouldn’t happen, as those students are serviced by non-certified teachers within the schools (although we do all the work for the students) and we can’t expect an hourly assistant to pick up that workload.
I said that was fine, and I understood, but that meant I had to retire. So I did. Then, they waited until I had filed all of the pension/ssa applications, which are “no-take-back” processes, to file for the open position to replace me. The jerks are hiring a math teacher AND a science teacher to replace me.
Had they just hired one of those, I would have stayed 5 more years to full retirement age. So now, their decision and timing will cost me around $1000 per month for the rest of my life.
They will probably end up spending about the same amount as I would make. But now, they are having to train half of their staff at the same time. This position isn’t just a straight forward “Okay, teach here now.” Like I said, I had a total of 25 classes that I teach every day. (and the doubling of duties I mentioned were where, halfway through the year, they started a new program, but also kept the old one, so that number doubled-ish.) And of the 3 teachers we had, I was probably most adept at operating they system. There is another guy who can probably get by, but the third teacher was new to us in November of this year. Gonna be a steep learning curve for the staff next year.
As much as that sucks for you, they will be the ones who realize how stupid they were and what a tremendous employee they lost, and how, ultimately, the students will suffer from far less experienced teachers (not that the students may notice themselves). All I can say is that although the loss of money is substantial for you, you kinda make up for it by collecting 3 extra years worth that you wouldn’t have had during those years, if that makes any kind of sense. At least that’s how I justified it when I started collecting Social Security at 62. My biggest problem filing at that time was because I filed right before COVID, and worked so much overtime during COVID because so many people called out, that I got dinged bad by SSA and had to repay close to $20k because I made more than they allowed.
That’s not exactly correct unless you live longer than you are expected to actuarially speaking. The SSA benefits are calculated starting with the payout for starting at FRA & dying when the life expectancy tables suggest you’ll go. You “win” by outliving the table’s projection. Most people don’t. (That’s why they’re actuary life expectancy tables ). So FRA x # of expected life = expected lifetime benefit.
If you start collecting early the new expected life expectancy is divided into the FRA-based expected lifetime benefit and that’s your early monthly benefit amount. Same total expected lifetime benefit, just paid out over more months. If you die according to the actuarial projection, you’re no better nor worse off than if you waited for FRA & bigger checks although you’d have received the smaller checks earlier when you might be healthier and have things to do & places to go.
The same is true of waiting and letting the monthly benefit increase. Now the expected lifetime benefit is spread over fewer months of expected life so the monthly benefit goes up.
The math is a bit more complex because of the need to provide for survivor and/or spousal benefits from the overall pool but the benefit payout design is you get X and whether that’s in more smaller monthly or fewer larger payments, that’s what you’re getting unless you beat (or lose to) the actuaries.
Side note - insurance companies are prohibited from selling insurance policies with the level of benefit payouts SSA provides because they are considered bad for the consumer relative to the premiums paid. That says a lot when you know what is allowed in various life, A&D and annuity insurance products
My biggest problem filing at that time was because I filed right before COVID, and worked so much overtime during COVID because so many people called out, that I got dinged bad by SSA and had to repay close to $20k because I made more than they allowed.
). So FRA x # of expected life = expected lifetime benefit.
