At LISD, to leave or not to leave is the question



Don't read too much into the book's title, it's the only pic I could find.


LISD is hoping to have 600 of its current employees apply for an early retirement incentive. The offer was public at Thursday night's budget meeting.  Employees would get 15 per cent of their annual salary if they choose to take the early retirement option. Superintendent Dr. Marcus Nelson made sure to clarify that taking this incentive is absolutely voluntarily. Just as an example, an administrator who is making $100,000 a year would receive $15,000. A teacher making $60,000 would get $9,000 and a para-professional making $20,000 (I don't know if there are any that make that much), would get $3,000.

It is estimated that the district can save $21M if they get 600 employees to take the offer. In the short term, this could allow LISD to avoid anticipated cuts to their Pre-Kinder and other programs. A longer term benefit : it would give recent teacher graduates some hope of getting teaching jobs eventually. The district would still save since starting teachers draw lower salaries.  Given the slow rate of economic resurgence, any

In an effort to spread out the effect of any early retirements that do occur, LISD says it will cap the maximum number of severances allowed at 300 for teachers, 250 for paraprofessionals and 50 for administrators.