Almost 600 of San Diego city school teachers signed up for early retirement by the deadline Friday evening. It is still to be determined whether the school board will approve the plan, however, because that number does not reach the goal of 633 teachers.
Workers who signed up took a bonus to retire early. School board members thought the deal could save as much as $20 million if they got the numbers they needed.
Susan Rodgers was one of the 592 teachers who decided to retire early.
The San Diego Education Association believes that the school system will save enough with the plan for it to go forward regardless of how many signed up on Friday.
Meanwhile, the district reached its goal for administrators taking the golden handshake -- in fact, it exceeded it. Ninety-one took the offer, reported the voiceofsandiego.org, 17 more than had been looked for.
Still, even if this all ends up being a done deal, those involved say that it's not the end of the school district's financial challenges -- and that kids will still lose out in the classroom.
"It's not a definite solution for all of our problems, but it will certainly help," school board member John de Beck. "So out of a maybe $150 million shortfall, this would save us -- if it came out as they planned --about 20 million bucks."
"We're gonna lose a lot of our veterans, the folks who serve as mentors to a lot of our younger teachers and folks who know the history of what's going on in their schools who've been a part of communities for years," said Camille Zombro of the teachers' association.
The numbers will be analyzed over the weekend and the school board is expected to take up the issue next Tuesday.
