EREA meets at Swainsboro Elementary School

The Emanuel Retired Educators Association (EREA) held its fourth of seven meetings for the 2024-2025 academic year on Wednesday, January 15, in the Media Center of Swainsboro Elementary School (SES) at noon. After President Verdell Brinson called the meeting to order and thanked everyone for attending, she introduced Lara Norton, Principal of SES, who welcomed all EREA attendees and their guest speaker to the school. She then told the group she was proud to report that all three grades have made significant progress in reading this school year and the year is just half over. For example, the number of third graders who can now read at grade level with 95% accuracy has increased from 76% to 88%; fourth graders, 68% to 82% and fifth graders, 88% to 92%. The Closing Gap Score has gone from 21.7% to 96.4%.

Following the blessing, several students delivered the delicious meals the School Food Services staff had prepared from the lunchroom to the tables.

At the conclusion of lunch, Mike Zarem, the Outreach Program Manager for the Teachers Retirement System (TRS) of Georgia, gave the organization a summary of some interesting TRS facts, such as TRS has paid a running total of $ 6.2 billion to retirees (which has greatly helped Georgia’s economy). Where does the money come from? Employees’ contributions and the interest from those contributions account for 8.8% of the money; employers’ contributions and the interest from those contributions bring in 24.9%; and investments total 66.3%. TRS of Georgia had a 14.5% return on investments for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2024, which was the best return among all state pension plans in the United States. Over the last 10 years, the return rate has averaged 7.92%, and over the past 30 years, the return rate has averaged 7.80%. After Mr. Zarem’s annual update, the group continued the meeting with its usual agenda—committee reports, old business, new business, and drawing for door prizes.

The next EREA meeting will be Wednesday, February 19, in the Media Center of Twin City Elementary School at 12 p.m. Chandra Hooks, Emanuel County School System’s Nutritionist, will be the speaker. All retired educators are encouraged to attend.

For this academic year, EREA partnered with its parent association, the Georgia Retired Educators Association (GREA), to show appreciation for all active educators in the county. The EREA Executive Committee decided to put the names of all employees of the school where the group is having its meeting into a box and let someone draw the name of “the winner,” who receives a basket filled with miscellaneous items. The SES winner was Loise Brinson, a fifth-grade teacher.

EREA is one of 128 local units of GREA. Both EREA and GREA are voices of the State Legislature and TRS of Georgia.