School Ends Wednesday for 300 Teachers : Education: Most instructors taking the L.A. district’s early retirement program will finish their careers three weeks before the close of the semester.

More than 300 veteran instructors will not return to their classrooms after the Thanksgiving break, when the Los Angeles Unified School District’s early retirement plan for teachers takes effect.

Under the plan, approved by the school board last month to save money for the cash-strapped district, 523 teachers--the maximum allowed--will leave their jobs this year in exchange for cash bonuses amounting to 40% of their salary. Most of the retirees teach elementary grades.

Of the 523 instructors, more than 150 will be allowed to remain until Dec. 20 in order to complete the fall semester. Principals and district officials feared their departure next week would have unnecessarily disrupted the education of their students.

The retiring instructors, who earn an average of $52,000 a year, will be replaced by younger, lower-paid teachers as part of an incentive program officials say will cost the district about $7 million. Officials say the program should pay for itself by mid-1992 by reducing payroll expenses.

The plan was conceived by the teachers union, United Teachers-Los Angeles, and the district to help the district balance its budget and compensate for a $275-million deficit, which has led to teacher layoffs and a 3% pay cut for all employees.

The program also enables the district to rehire some of the newer teachers who were released last summer because of budget cuts.

“The good thing is, it’s getting some of these young teachers back in the classroom right away,” said Helen Bernstein, president of UTLA.

The timing of the plan drew criticism from teachers because it will require them to say goodby to their students on Wednesday--three weeks shy of the end of the semester.

“What makes me mad (is that) after 22 years, they would not let me finish up like a gentleman,” Marty Bercow, a San Fernando High School print shop teacher who opted for the program, said Monday. “I can’t finish wrapping up the package.”

Officials said the early exit date would save the district $650,000, the amount it would have cost to keep the teachers through the end of the semester. But employment operations administrator Michael Acosta, whose office evaluated the retirement applications, said some teachers were allowed to defer their departure if school officials could not find a suitable replacement or if they expected to eliminate those teachers’ positions in the spring, when enrollment usually declines.

Special-education teachers were automatically granted extensions to give the district more time to find replacements. “If we had let them go on Wednesday,” Acosta said, “we wouldn’t have anybody there.”

Acosta said principals and some school leadership councils--made up of teachers, administrators and parents--have already begun interviewing candidates to fill the 523 vacancies.