Final Bell to Ring for Teachers Taking District Buyout : Education: Veterans pack up memories before leaving on early retirement offered by the cash-strapped L.A. system.

Sifting through the metal file cabinets that stretch along one wall of her classroom, Judy Douthit paused every so often as she stumbled across old lesson plans, or a few special sewing projects left behind by some of the thousands of home economics students she has taught since 1955.

“I just look at the students’ names and remember, and wonder what they’re doing now,” the Canoga Park High School teacher said, fingering a clutch of neatly docketed folders bunched together in one drawer. “Teaching is part of my life. I will miss it.”

But after more than 30 years of collecting apples and assigning homework, the home economics and math teacher is calling it quits, opting for an early-retirement package offered by the financially strapped Los Angeles Unified School District. Douthit is among more than 500 teachers who have elected to make an early exit, and one of 350 who will bid goodby to their classes today.

The plan offers cash bonuses to teachers 55 and over with at least 15 years of experience in the district if they retire early to make way for younger, lower-paid recruits. But the timing of the program drew criticism because it forced most teachers to leave today--three weeks before the end of the fall semester.

“I really would have preferred to stay till the end of the semester,” Douthit said. “Right now I’m packing and getting ready to go. The shock will set in later.”

A teacher who awakens every morning at 5:15 to get to school on time from Manhattan Beach, Douthit said she was already planning to retire at the end of this school year or the next. But the retirement package was appealing enough to hasten her departure from a school system whose students, she said, seem increasingly unmotivated.

Although most schools will have two or three retirees by the end of December, Canoga Park High is bracing for the departure of Douthit and six other teachers. And in Van Nuys, Ulysses S. Grant High School is losing eight veteran teachers--more than any other school in the district--and expects to sign on new recruits in the spring, when teachers are usually let go because of lower enrollment.

The new teachers will probably be plucked from the ranks of those released last summer as the district grappled with a crippling budget deficit.

In the view of retiring Grant drafting teacher Stan Hughes, 58, who has been a fixture on campus since its second year of existence in 1960, the new crop will lend the school faculty a fresh face.

“The new teachers are a new breed. They were raised in the ‘60s, and I had them in class,” Hughes said with a chuckle as he took a break from his fourth-period class Tuesday morning. “They do things differently from the old breed, the veteran teachers, but they get things done. They are the future.”

As with Douthit at Canoga Park, excavating the mementos--and just plain junk--buried in cupboards and drawers over the last 30 years has been an exercise in nostalgia for Hughes, a genial, gray-haired man who is quick to offer visitors a clandestine cup of coffee in the second-story loft of his classroom.

“When I cleaned out my file cabinet, I found a report card from 1963,” he said.

But the man whom Principal Bob Collins called “the heart of the school” furrowed his brow when he explained why he opted for the early retirement package, which grants eligible teachers a cash bonus equal to 40% of their salary.

“To be frank, I don’t think the district’s in a good place. Right now is the lowest I’ve ever seen as far as morale and money go,” he said. “It didn’t take much to convince me to retire.”

The buyout offer prompted him to begin thinking of a future with his wife in a custom-built house somewhere in Arizona or near Las Vegas.

Not that his last day--or adjustment to a life not dictated by bells and attendance sheets--will be any easier. “I kind of wear my emotions,” he said, adding that he plans to have an unofficial open house on his last day of school, complete with refreshments for well-wishers.

But Douthit, preparing for her departure today, has a different kind of farewell in mind.

“I’ll teach till the last minute.”