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Retiring teachers face snag on benefits

Section: Community

Sarah Carr

For teacher Dennis Mischler the road to retirement will take an unexpected, last-minute twist.

The 30-year veteran had planned to end his career at Lusher Charter School, where he has taught fifth grade for the past five years. But this school year Mischler faced an agonizing choice. He could spend his last semester teaching at Lusher and forgo retirement health benefits, or move to a non-charter school run directly by the Orleans Parish school system, and retire with medical benefits.

When it became a charter school more than two years ago, Lusher's teachers were placed on a leave of absence from the Orleans Parish school system for three years. District officials said state charter law required that teachers at schools converting from traditional programs to charters be put on leave for the three-year period. That means unless the teachers return from "leave," the retiree health and life insurance benefits they worked toward in the old system will be lost.

The unique predicament illustrates the unanticipated wrinkles that can arise in a school system that transformed into a system of mostly charter schools at unprecedented speed -- and must now try to share a limited pool of money and teachers. It also shows the challenges that charter schools can face in offering the services and benefits that a central office -- and the collective buying power of a large school system -- would have provided in the past.

If he stayed at Lusher, Mischler would still be eligible for the basic retirement benefits through the state retirement system for public school teachers. It's a share of the ancillary retirement benefits, like medical and life insurance, that the Orleans Parish school system provides, but nearly all charter schools do not.

For Mischler, 55, the quirk will mean starting anew in the twilight of his career. He will move to Mary McCleod Bethune Elementary School later this month, and then retire in May just as he had, sort of, planned.

"I've had numerous teachers in my position who've come to me concerned about what to do," Mischler said.

He added that the Orleans Parish school administration would not let him stay at Lusher and collect the retiree medical benefits, arguing that it would set a precedent.

But in the fall, the state attorney general's office issued an opinion in the case, saying the school system should let Mischler return from "leave" so that he can collect the benefits. That led to the reassignment at Bethune.

Stan Smith, the chief financial officer for the district, said "a number of teachers have inquired about the issue," but no other teachers have actually been assigned new schools like Mischler. He said if similar cases start cropping up, it could lead to teacher instability in both the charter schools and the schools directly run by the Orleans Parish school system.

Brenda Huffstutler, a seventh-grade teacher at Lusher, said she's eligible for retirement at the end of the 2008-09 school year, and may consider ending her leave and facing reassignment in a traditional Orleans Parish school -- if it's not too late. She said she's unclear on the deadline for ending the leave and returning.

"It is something I've seriously thought about doing in January of next year, if that's what I need to do," she said. "I know a couple of people I work with are quite concerned about what they are going to have to pay for their health insurance."

Like other employers, charter schools are in no way obligated to offer retiree health care as a benefit. Huffstutler, 61, said the Lusher teachers knew they were taking a three-year leave of absence from the district when the school became a charter. But she's not sure they all realized the ramifications for retirement benefits.

"At some point, the (school) board is going to say, 'We are not going to hire someone back for a semester just so we can pay insurance for them for the rest of their life,' " said Brian Riedlinger, chief executive officer of the Algiers Charter Schools Association, a cooperative that manages nine charter schools. "That doesn't make sense."

The state attorney general's opinion, however, makes it fairly clear that the school district is obligated to rehire teachers at the end of the second year of their leave -- even if that means laying off current teachers.

"A local school board must allow an employee to return to the city or parish school system to a comparable position at the end of the second year of leave . . . even if such return necessitates a reduction in force," the opinion states.

Before Katrina, the Orleans Parish district ran nearly all of the public schools. But now it operates just five schools and the education landscape is dominated by charters. The teachers who would be most likely to want to return to one of the five traditionally operated schools to receive retirement benefits, like Mischler, are ones who worked for the Orleans Parish school system for 20 years, are close to retirement and currently teach at charter schools that existed as traditional schools before the flood.

No one seems to know how many teachers meet those criteria.

Some charter operators have studied ways to add more retirement benefits, but cost remains a steep obstacle. Riedlinger said that, for the Algiers Charter Schools Association, "the decision was made early on that it would just destroy us" to offer retiree health benefits. "We knew it was going to be a problem early on," he said.

The association is trying to figure out if a large group of charter schools could come together to form an insurance pool, a more financially feasible way of offering retiree health benefits than individual schools doing it on their own, he said.

Meanwhile, one Lusher parent complains that Mischler feels forced to leave midyear -- and that other teachers might need to leave school shortly before their retirements as well.

"I just find it very frustrating that the School Board would think that it would be an educationally sound move to yank a teacher out of a classroom," said Lonnie Smith, whose four children attend Lusher.

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