Transitioning to retirement: the biggest challenge: Channeling one's energies when the daily frenzy ends

School Administrator, Feb, 2004 by Ruth E. Sternberg

He says he will look around the community for new opportunities, maybe finding something he can do 15 to 20 hours per week. He's thinking about helping negotiate teacher contracts for school boards. He may help an accrediting agency advise school districts on realigning curricula with state and federal standards.

His wife also has been asked if she wants to consult. They're mulling it over. After all, there's a lot to do in upper Michigan during all seasons.

"I don't want to get too busy," he said. "We just got our cross-country skis waxed."

Unexpected Upheaval

Sometimes change isn't a choice.

Ted Rokicki saw his plans--and his life--derailed in 2001 when his wife, Rosanne Danielle, died of cancer. Rokicki, then 70, had been retired from the superintendency since 1995. He also had worked for several educational agencies, including the Connecticut Center for School Change in Hartford, where he advised schools as they implemented new programs, and the Connecticut Department of Higher Education, where he helped design a certification program for those entering teaching from other careers. He also filled in as interim superintendent for four months in Burlington, Conn.

Danielie, 57, had not yet retired, and the couple had been putting money away, planning to travel. "She was supposed to retire on her birthday, Nov. 1, when she would have been 60," he says. "We were going to go back to Italy."

They planned to move to Seabrook Island, near Charleston, S.C., where they had another home.

Since Danielle's death, Rokicki has made some difficult decisions. He has put his Burlington home up for sale and plans to live in South Carolina alone. He is seeking new interests but says, "You can't just shift gears."

Rokicki is used to being active. Besides his work for the state, he recently finished a stint teaching graduate school. He used to run an aerial photography business from his own Cessna 172, which he sold a few years ago.

Contact with people always has been important to him, especially in an educational setting.

"I miss the camaraderie," he says. "They were fun and alert and quick-witted. And I miss the give-and-take with young people. When I was a high school principal, I used to teach a course called aviation science--all the intricacies of flying. I took kids out to the airport and they flew with me."

Rokicki has turned to family, spending time with his and Danielle's children, each from previous marriages. He cares for her 91-year-old mother.

"I'm going to volunteer to help with the Habitat (for Humanity) program. I'm going to donate money and help with the labor," he says. "There's a little elementary school close to Seabrook Island. They always need volunteers. I grew up as a very poor kid in Toledo. I love to read. I'll do some of that."

He says friends are trying to fix him up on dates. He isn't sure he's ready for that.

"Whether there's somebody else in my life, I don't know."

Financial Worries

Sometimes finances can make a well-laid plan more challenging.

Dennis Rectenwald had promised his wife he would retire from the Port Clinton, Ohio, schools and go into business with her, running a bed-and-breakfast.