Like many states, California is experiencing a teacher shortage that has reached alarming levels, leaving school districts and county offices of education with high vacancy rates and underprepared teachers, while forcing them to rely on substitutes, increase class sizes and assign teachers outside their areas of training. These scenarios hurt all pupils and disproportionately impacts low-income, minority and English learner students.

The changes made by SB 765 will help provide immediate relief for schools working to place a qualified teacher in every classroom and chip away at the teacher shortage while ongoing efforts to attract new candidates to the profession begin to show results.

The bill allows LEAs to waive the 180-day mandatory waiting period they must observe before hiring a recently retired teacher, and temporarily increase the California State Teacher’s Retirement System (CalSTRS) postretirement compensation limit from 50 to 70 percent. These modest yet important changes will allow a retired teacher to help fulfill a critical teaching need for a longer period of time.

“These two changes are some of the only legislative tools the state has to provide immediate help to alleviate the California’s unprecedented educational staffing shortage,” said CSBA Legislative Director Chris Reefe, “SB 765 is temporarily expanding helpful permissions in law that LEAs can use to address critical educational staffing shortages across the state. The practical effect is that it would allow retired teachers to return to the classroom more quickly and allow them to teach in the classroom for a longer period; 20 percent more time before they reach the postretirement earnings limit.”

Prior to the adoption of SB 765, under existing law, the California Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act (PEPRA) of 2013 restricted a retired person who is receiving a pension benefit from the state’s public retirement system from being eligible to be employed for a period of 180 days following their retirement date, including to fill a critically needed position.

PEPRA also put in place a postretirement compensation cap of approximately 50 percent of compensation for which the retired teacher is serving. Once the retired teacher hits the postretirement compensation cap, the law requires the teacher’s retirement allowance be reduced by the amount of excess compensation, i.e. a dollar-for-dollar reduction of the teacher’s retirement benefit.

For many LEAs across the state, the existing 50 percent earnings cap results in a retired teacher hitting the limit in late November to early December, and many will choose to not teach beyond that point as it financially impacts their retirement compensation. Increasing the cap by a modest 20 percent will result in those same teachers being able to teach through late February to early March, depending on the LEA’s compensation rates, before they reach the earnings cap. For students, this means they will have an experienced teacher for at least two or three months more — equivalent to 30 or more instructional days.

“As school districts and county offices of education prepare for the coming school year, we strongly encourage them to take advantage of this temporary expansion of their ability to bring back retired teachers more quickly and for longer,” said Patrick O’Donnell, CSBA Chief of Governmental Relations. “Retired teachers and other staff are some of the best-equipped candidates to hit the ground running and provide the best instruction and services to California students.”