If you retired from teaching in a Virginia school division, you could return to teach in a critical shortage area and receive a full paycheck and collect retirement pay!
Virginia law allows K-12 school divisions to hire eligible Virginia Retirement System (VRS) retirees into certain full-time, critical shortage teaching and administrative assignments. To be eligible, retirees have to:
- Satisfy a 12-month bona fide break in service during which no work is performed for any VRS employer;
- Hold a Virginia Board of Education license; and
- Not have retired on disability retirement or with a reduced VRS benefit under an early retirement incentive program.
Under this special allowance, you continue to receive your monthly retirement benefit from VRS while working in the full-time position.
For the 2022-23 school year, the Virginia Department of Education has identified 10 critical shortage teaching areas:
- Elementary Education Pre-K-6
- Special Education
- Middle Education Grades 6-8
- Career and Technical Education
- Mathematics Grades 6-12 (including Algebra 1)
- Science (Secondary)
- Foreign Language PreK-12
- English (Secondary)
- History and Social Science (Secondary)
- Health and Physical Education