Retirement a factor in shrinking California teacher work force

California expects to lose 100,000 teachers over the next ten years. The reasons, according to a new study, are two-fold: the prohibitive cost of living in the state on a teacher's salary; and large-scale retirement of baby-boom aged educators.

"We have a large group in the retirement phase and the number of those incoming are not matching up," Victor Valley Union High School District's Senior Director for Certificated Personnel Joseph Andreasen said. "We have a large contingency of teachers that over the next 10 years will be retiring ... about a fourth of our staff, maybe a third."

To simply keep up with the area's growth, district officials had to hire 107 new teachers for the 2005-06 school year — 57 more then they expected. Andreasen anticipates needing 60 additional teachers for the next school year.

Aggressive recruitment is the main method local districts hope to use to beat the odds.

"We're going to several job fairs both in and out of state. We're going to Oregon, Ohio and looking down south in Louisiana and Alabama, areas affected by the hurricane, to hire displaced teachers looking for a job who may be wanting to come to California," Andreasen said.