8 teachers in Cass County's Southeastern School Corp. will retire

A group of teachers at Southeastern schools have accepted a retirement incentive.

As part of budget cuts for 2010, eight teachers signed on to retire after this school year. In return, through a past sale of bonds, they will gain a $20,000 benefit to either a health plan or a 401 A tax annuity.

The situation is a win-win for the teachers and the school corporation, Southeastern superintendent John Bevan said.

“It helps out the school in that we will absorb the loss of all but one of them,” the superintendent said.

The savings for the schools will be about $500,000 through attrition.

The response to the incentive was a bit more than expected, he said.

“You always hope it will work perfectly, but in reality, we expected four or five teachers to retire,” Bevan said.

The incentive package was part of budget cuts proposed for 2010. Bevan explained the corporation is experiencing a reduction in the general fund budget of about $759,000 for 2010. He said the cuts represent about 7.55 percent of the overall budget.

Other changes to cut funds include a re-alignment of grades. Starting next school year, grades one through three will be housed in Thompson Elementary and grades four through six will be housed in Galveston Elementary. Both of the schools will have kindergarten.

Among cuts being discussed are reducing the full-day kindergarten program by one teacher and one aide, eliminating freshman volleyball, basketball and cheerleading, reducing coaching staff for freshman football and junior high and varsity basketball and eliminating fifth- and sixth-grade traveling basketball.