The recent wave of veteran public school faculty and staff members being forced to retire has not only disrupted the lives of those leaving the system, but also those they leave behind.

As many longtime teachers and administrators leave their jobs to avoid taking a financial penalty, their soon-to-be former colleagues try to keep things on an even keel for their students.

For some schools, that’s easier than others.

For instance, the feeder schools for Mortimer Jordan High School are losing as many as 22 positions. Not all of those were filled at the moment. Jordan is losing one teacher/bus driver, and North Jefferson Middle School is losing none.

“We had no prep time. This was just suddenly dropped in our laps a little over a month ago,” Mortimer Jordan principal Barbara Snider said. “We all feel like we’ve been a bit blindsided by this.”

It’s all a result of the bill passed by the Alabama State Legislature in the recent regular session. Faced with a budget shortfall of more than $700 million and a constitutional mandate to fill the gap, the new Republican majority sent through a bill that requires all public employees to contribute much more to their pension and health insurance plans.

To escape the added cost, which could add up to thousands of dollars a year for some, employees who qualify must retire by the end of the year. That’s not such a big deal for most government agencies, but for schools it’s another matter entirely. They run on a different calendar, and the retirement cutoff date falls in the middle of the semester.

The bill had already gone through passage before legislators realized there could be problems. According to Rep. Allen Treadaway, R-Gardendale, their leadership told them the problem would be fixed in a special session to be called for matters relating to the Jefferson County sewer debt crisis. But that session wasn’t called, and school staffers had until Monday to decide whether or not to retire. Those who do must be gone before Dec. 1.

“It’s disrupting the students’ learning. That was poor planning by the legislature,” Snider said. “I don’t think they thought about it in those terms. I feel that if they’d had that special session it would be different. But they didn’t, so here we are.”

Snider will replace her retiring teacher with a substitute until the end of the semester, and shuffle some positions in-house after that.

At Fultondale High, where counselor Sheila Scott is taking the retirement option, the effects are a little more far-reaching. Among Scott’s responsibilities are making sure seniors who are at risk of not graduating on time get the class credits they need for their diploma next spring, as well as scholarship possibilities for college beyond that — tasks that a substitute teacher cannot easily fill.

“There’s just some information about them that nobody else knows, and these kids are getting ready to graduate and may not be ready,” Scott said. Her school is also losing at least one other teacher, with two others still deciding this week. The city’s elementary school is losing principal Cynde Cornelius, plus an office worker and two teachers.

Some local schools are unaffected, or were able to adjust fairly easily. Corner School, for instance, lost a teacher and a custodian; both openings were filled in short order and with minimal disruption. Bryan Elementary lost no staff.

Additionally, the openings caused by those retiring is proving to be a blessing in disguise for some out-of-work teachers.

“We’re fortunate in that we have a flooded market right now, with many teachers who lost their jobs in previous rounds of budget cuts,” said Laura Ware, principal at Snow Rogers Elementary.

Ware lost one teacher last month, and will lose another on Dec. 1. She’s already filled the earlier vacancy, and expects to have the other filled without needing a substitute in the interim.

The Jefferson County system is slated to lose 80 staffers systemwide as of the latest count on Tuesday, according to spokesman Nez Calhoun.

“Whether or not it’s disruptive depends on your situation — a lot like the old saying about when your neighbor loses his job its a recession, and when you lose yours it’s a depression,” Calhoun said. “But it’s traumatic for children, especially younger ones, when they lose a teacher in the middle of a semester.”

As of Tuesday, 1,425 teachers, administrators and school staff across the state were planning to retire because of the new law, Calhoun said. About 10,000 people were eligible.