For the first time in a few years, the Greene County School District will not use one of its policies.

The Greene County School Board recently decided to not implement the district’s voluntary early retirement policy for this school year. Superintendent Tim Christensen says the early retirement policy is primarily used as a financial tool, where a retiring teacher who is typically at the higher end of the pay scale would be replaced by someone with not as much experience at the lower end of the pay scale to ultimately save the district money in the general fund. 

“So we have had to implement that the last several years because we’ve had declining enrollment. This year we had an increase in enrollment and the Board just felt that the position we’re in financially, with increasing enrollment, that that’s not something we needed to pull out as a financial tool this year.”    

Christensen points out the general fund is driven mostly by student enrollment, which is up for this year with adding 27 additional students to the district on their certified enrollment report.