Retirement letters can be as simple as this one from FreeLetterSamples.com: "I will be resigning as of the 21st of June this year in order to pursue my retirement. Please accept this letter as an official notification of my resignation from [School Name]. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your generous support, understanding and cooperation throughout my time spent here. It has been an immense pleasure to serve as a teacher with [School Name], and the relationships I have formed here over the years will not be soon forgotten."
One letter that spread around the Internet is from Gerald Conti, a teacher from New York. He posted his letter on his Facebook page, and it grew from there. Conti talked about leaving before he qualified for his pension due to his feelings about education and standardized testing. He ended the letter by saying, “For the last decade or so, I have had two signs hanging above the blackboard at the front of my classroom, they read, ‘Words Matter’ and ‘Ideas Matter.’ While I still believe these simple statements to be true, I don’t feel that those currently driving public education have any inkling of what they mean. This whole thing is being driven by people who know nothing about education. It's sad."
Joan Vannorsdall, a high school teacher in Virginia, chose to write her retirement letter directed to her fellow teachers. A part of the letter, posted on the Roanoke Times website, reads, “...know that the act of learning is the job of your students, not you. ... Students are responsible for engaging with the teacher’s offerings, internalizing them, and demonstrating understanding, and then mastery.” She also decried the process of letting students affect teachers' evaluations as well as the trend of classrooms growing larger while paychecks remained stagnant. Her letter sparked a vigorous discussion on the Roanoke Times' Facebook page.
A teacher can write a short, simple retirement letter, covering just basic information, or write a longer one to share personal thoughts that may have been difficult to share while employed by a school district. Either way, the teacher’s retirement letter is the first step in moving to life outside the world of education.