How can administrators determine when educators should move on?

Rabbi Strauss clocks in at 8:30 sharp, as he’s done every day for the past 31 years. His step is a bit slower these days, his briefcase heavier, but he enters the classroom with a bright smile, eager to impart a love for Yiddishkeit to the next generation.

But by 9:45, he wonders, Is it me, or are boys today less capable of sustaining focus on a sugya? Do they squirm more than they did 15 years ago? And why is this irritating me more than it did last year? How many weeks are left in the school year, anyway? He leaves the classroom with that same bright smile — he’s doing what he loves and he knows he’s still good at it — but a sense of disquiet niggles: Are these thoughts hints that his days in chinuch are numbered?

The whys, whens, and hows of rebbeim and teachers retiring are complex, delicate, and not something many people were willing to speak about on the record — expectations, money, and difficult past encounters can be a flammable mix. But there is strong reason we should want to get this right: to ensure both students and teachers the fairness they deserve, and to tailor circumstances so that teachers can walk away with smiles on their faces and peace in their hearts.

Faltering Flame

Everyone on the planet, if they live long enough, eventually experiences a functional decline. At the same time, there’s no formula for when that decline will take effect, and no way to predict when a teacher will no longer be able to do their job well. Indeed, a well-known kindergarten morah in Monsey pranced around her classroom with vigor into her upper nineties.

Rabbi Sholom Binyomin Ginsberg, an educational consultant in Toms River, NJ with 37 years of experience in chinuch, shares a personal experience. “When I was a principal in Seattle, I was on the phone with my father-in-law in New York a few days before the school year started. I sounded uptight, and he asked me what was wrong. ‘I’m still missing an eighth grade rebbi,’ I told him. ‘Interview me!’ was his response. He was close to 70, a retired rav with no classroom experience, but I gave him the job on the spot. He moved in with us, and saved the year for these boys — he came in fresh and did a phenomenal job. The boys loved him, and many kept up with him when he returned to New York at the end of the year.”

But while earlier for some and later for others, there are certain skills that tend to be impacted by age. Vibrancy — the ability to jump around and keep kids’ interest —wanes with age, mechanchim say, as does tolerance level.

The bigger issue, they say, is burnout. The term implies the loss of a flame once present.

To understand what’s missing, look at the qualities that should exist to begin with.