Retired Orange County teachers
want protections from the state when they opt to go back into the classrooms.
A group of Orange County teachers who retired and then returned to the classroom say they should be eligible for the tenure-like protections they had before they left.
But school district leaders say state law calls for them to be employed under annual contracts as new teachers are.
At the district’s urging, lawmakers are considering bills that would prevent teachers who have retired from receiving what are known as professional service contracts, which offer more job security and the potential for more pay.
The retired teachers can collect their state pensions, which are based on years of service, age and pay, even as they draw a new salary by returning to the classroom.
Although two teachers successfully sued the district in 2011 and received professional service contracts, district lobbyist Scott Howat said Orange school officials don’t think the decision reflects the intent of the law.
The bills (HB 1003 and SB 1356) aim to clarify that, he said. The House version was approved unanimously in February, and the Senate bill has received favorable committee votes.
“Our view was we want to hire them — we think we have great teachers that do retire and want to come back and work but that they wouldn’t come back on a perpetual contract,” Howat said.
The legislation is not retroactive so if it’s approved, teachers who already have the professional service contracts will keep them. Howat said the district “inadvertently” gave the longer-term contracts to six teachers who retired.
If the proposal fails, he said, the district could also owe $1.6 million in back pay to teachers.
Attorney Tobe Lev, who is representing a group of about 40 Orange teachers who want professional service contracts, said his clients are “doing the same work as any other teacher,” during a recent Senate appropriations subcommittee meeting.
“They were never warned in many cases (that) they would lose their professional service contracts and job security,” he said.
Two retired teachers who were later rehired sued in 2011 to determine whether the county was required to issue the more permanent contracts after the employees completed three years of employment, as was done at the time for new teachers. A circuit court sided with the teachers.
An arbitrator decided last fall the decision should apply to other teachers as well, but the district filed a suit in January challenging the arbitrator’s decision.
Howat said he encouraged legislators to address the issue because the district doesn’t think state law intended for retired teachers to be eligible for longerterm contracts.
Mark Mitchell, executive director of the Orange County Classroom Teachers Association, saw it differently. “It’s the same old practice by OCPS,” he said. “When they don’t win, they want to change the rules of the game.”
The issue could be a moot point moving forward, because Florida lawmakers ended the tenure-like contracts for teachers hired after 2011. They now receive annual contracts.