Buddy Can You Spare A Dime?

With less than a year to go before I retire from teaching I am really worried. Charlie Crist and the Florida legislature lowered the retirement supplement for helping with insurance. As it is I am going to be close to poverty trying to take care of 9 cats and a bunny. I have some retirement funds invested but with the way the stock and bond market has been going I will be lucky to have a fraction of my investments by next year. I was going to put all of this in interest bearing CDs and add the interest to my retirement checks. Now it appears I will not have anywhere near what I had hoped to have for that. Our retirement system is a joke. It doesn't support even a reasonable level of life in today's world. I would keep teaching but my health has been really failing this year and I just don't think I can do it any longer. It is all I can do to finish out this school year. I wish I could keep on teaching but at this point it is all I can do to stagger through the day. I refuse to be one of those teachers who are just filling up space and earning a paycheck. If I can't put in 100% then I do not belong in teaching any more. I will make it through the current year but that is all my body will let me do.

I just got an email from a former student. Here is an excerpt:

"You may not know it,but you are one of the most influential persons in my life. You were my first biology teacher.You inspired me to become a biologist. You are an amazing teacher and our students will be at a disadvantage without you. Thank you so much for everything, from my first internship in the sciences, to my first biology class, and my first game of chess (which taught me to manage my time and strategize). I hope to teach and research until the day I die and this all was thanks to a man who really could teach, make it interesting, and cared about my education."

So I may have to be satisfied with knowing I have helped several thousand students to achieve their dreams. My own retirement dream is looming as a nightmare for me and there isn't a thing I can do about it. Life is not fair and I never expected to get rich. I am just a little bitter at the fact that retiring teachers such as myself have to worry about having enough money to stay alive. My animals come first and they will be cared for. I may have to sell my car and eat a lot of beans to do this but so be it. I just think that the local and Florida educational system should be ashamed at how they treat someone like myself who has given 30 years of my life to teaching and inspiring students. Accolades are great but at the end of the day they don't put food on the table.