LAWRENCE: 13 people in school district are retiring

By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
   When the Lawrence Township public school district opens its doors in the fall, there will be many new faces in the school buildings — but not all of them will belong to students.
   With the last day of school just two weeks away, 13 employees have turned in their retirement papers, said Rebecca Gold, the school district’s director of personnel. This includes eight classroom teachers, guidance counselors and classroom assistants, plus two custodians, two secretaries and one administrator.
   The retirees come from all of the schools, with the exception of the Ben Franklin Elementary School. Lawrence High School is losing an assistant principal, a guidance counselor, an assistant in the English as a Second Language program and a custodian.
   Lawrence Middle School is losing a speech therapist and a custodian, and Lawrence Intermediate School is losing a special education teacher and a library secretary. A district-wide reading recovery program teacher also is retiring.
   A third-grade teacher and a classroom assistant are retiring from the Eldridge Park School, while a classroom assistant is leaving the Lawrenceville Elementary School. A secretary at the administration building also is calling it a day.
   The 13 retirees are fewer in number than in the past couple of years, Ms. Gold said. There were 21 retirements in 2010-11, and 19 at the end of the 2009-10 school year. She could not put her finger on the reason for the decline in retirements.
   ”(Maybe) it’s the economy,” she said. “Some (employees) are staying on longer. A lot of people have retired in the past couple of years. A lot of them left when Gov. Christie changed the (pension) laws, but it is hard to account for why people have left.”
   Retirements most likely are driven by personal reasons — health reasons, a spouse or partner has retired, or the staff member just feels it’s the right time to leave, Ms. Gold said.
   Meanwhile, Ms. Gold is not concerned about being able to fill the vacancies. The positions have been advertised, and officials are in the process of interviewing candidates and making job offers. She said she hopes to have the bulk of the openings filled by July.
   The applicant pool is “huge,” she said, adding there are multiple applicants for the positions. The pool of applicants is better than it has been in many years and that is partly due to the fact that school districts have laid off personnel. There are also new college graduates seeking jobs, she said.
   ”We have been doing very well,” she said. “We are getting responses. It won’t be hard to fill the vacancies. It’s matching good people to the jobs. That is the hardest part. We want to find the best candidate to match the situation.”