Locate official retirement information
Find official retirement and pension information, organize the steps involved in preparing to retire, and understand where to go for answers about benefits and retirement procedures.
About The Exit Bell
The classroom was your career. What comes next is yours.
The Exit Bell is a resource for educators who are approaching retirement, preparing to leave the school system, or simply wondering what their next chapter could look like.
From one educator to another
Our purpose
From one educator to another
After 25 years in education, I began preparing for something I had spent years looking forward to — but quickly realized I was not completely prepared for: what comes next?
Retirement from education is not only about completing paperwork and collecting a pension. For many educators, we are retiring from the classroom while still having years of experience, skills, ideas and earning potential ahead of us.
That is why I created The Exit Bell.
Explore your next career chapter
Explore jobs outside traditional classroom teaching, identify transferable skills developed during a career in education, and discover remote, part-time, flexible and second-career opportunities.
Build new possibilities
Explore technology and other skills that may open new career possibilities, then find helpful tools, websites and resources in one convenient place.
Who it is for
Built for educators in transition.
The Exit Bell is for educators who are approaching retirement, preparing to leave the school system, or simply wondering what their next chapter could look like. It is a place to start looking, not a promise to have every answer.
Our approach
Guidance with clear boundaries.
I am not a retirement advisor, financial planner, pension specialist, attorney or employment agency. I am an educator going through this transition too. While researching my own retirement, I realized how scattered the information can be — and how many educators begin asking the same question: “I know how to retire from teaching. But what am I going to do next?”
The bell does not mean you are finished.
For years, the bell told us when to start, when to stop, when to teach, when to meet and when to move on to the next period. Eventually, one of those bells will be our exit bell. But leaving the classroom does not mean you are finished working, learning, creating, earning or contributing. Sometimes it simply means you are finally able to decide what comes next.
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