Tutoring after you retire from teaching in Arkansas

A part-time job for retired teachers: what online tutoring looks like

If you live in Arkansas, you can apply: it is one of the 14 states where SpecialEdResource can currently employ tutors. You’d tutor one student at a time, in live, one-on-one online sessions with students who have IEPs, 504 plans and learning differences. It’s part-time W-2 employment, and training is paid.

Our greatest need is weekdays, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Central (9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern). Evening and weekend tutors are welcome too: tell us when you can teach. We ask for at least five hours a week of availability, and tutors work 5 to 25 hours a week. Available hours depend on student demand and schedule fit.

Each student has sessions with you an average of 2 to 3 times a week, and a session usually lasts 30 minutes, 45 minutes or 1 hour. Most students keep meeting through summer and school breaks.

You decide which students you want to work with. How many students you start with is very flexible and mainly up to you. Available hours depend on student demand and schedule fit.

See the full job description

Before you start: ATRS, your license, health coverage and Social Security

1. Your ATRS pension. ATRS’s limits on working after retirement are written for jobs with ATRS covered employers. Here is how three kinds of work stand under ATRS’s current documents:

   Work	What ATRS’s documents say, and how they apply
   Tutoring online with SpecialEdResource	ATRS’s 2025/2026 Member Retirement Planner says: “Unless you are the Normal Retirement Age, you will have a mandatory four-month termination separation period from any ATRS covered employment beginning on your effective retirement date. You may work outside of ATRS covered employment. However, you cannot engage in any substitute, part-time, or full-time work, or be paid for any work or professional development training, by any ATRS covered employer for four months.” SpecialEdResource is a private company and does not appear on ATRS’s list of participating employers (June 30, 2025). If you are still in your separation period, ATRS asks you to check with it first: its ATRS Member Handbook 2026-2027 says “you should always contact ATRS for guidance if you are considering working during your termination separation period.” If you retired from ATRS by disability, ask ATRS before taking any job. Confirm your own situation with ATRS at (501) 682-1517 or info@artrs.gov.
   Substitute teaching in an Arkansas public school, hired by the school or placed by a staffing company	Substitute teaching for the school is work for an ATRS covered employer. If you took an age-and-service retirement and were not at ATRS’s Normal Retirement Age when you retired, ATRS bars it during your four-month termination separation period: “This includes substituting, part-time and/or full-time employment with any ATRS covered employer.” That period is counted from your effective retirement date, which is always the first day of a month, not your last day of work. ATRS’s Normal Retirement Age is 65 with at least 5 years of service, or at least 60 when your age plus your years of service add up to 98 or more. During that period you also may not apply for that work or arrange it for later: ATRS’s Working and Retirement page says “You CANNOT APPLY for a job with an ATRS covered employer during the termination separation period.” Placed by a staffing company: the ATRS Employer Handbook lists substitute teaching among the services an outside company can supply on a school’s premises, and we found no ATRS text on this case. As we read them, Arkansas law’s bar on paid services “to or on behalf of” a covered employer during the separation period (§ 24-7-502(a)(6)(B)) and ATRS’s retirement application, which bars paid service for a covered employer “with or without a contract”, appear to reach such a placement. Ask ATRS before you accept one. For age-and-service retirees, ATRS has had no earnings limit since 2009 on work for an ATRS covered employer after the separation period, or right away for those at Normal Retirement Age.
   Other work for an ATRS covered employer (such as an Arkansas public school, charter school, education service cooperative, education-related state agency or some colleges; ATRS’s list of participating employers also includes some private organizations)	As with substitute teaching, the same four-month termination separation period applies to the same age-and-service retirees, and ATRS says: “You CANNOT HAVE ANY CONNECTION to the district by AGREEMENT OR UNDERSTANDING for future employment.” After the separation period, the earnings rule is the same as for substitute teaching. ATRS’s Retirement FAQ: “The earnings limitation that once applied to retirees returning to work for an ATRS employer was repealed in 2009.”

   Sources: ATRS’s 2025/2026 Member Retirement Planner (printed page 3), its ATRS Member Handbook 2026-2027 (current as of July 2026; page 27), its Working and Retirement page, its Retirement FAQ, its ATRS Employer Handbook (Rev. 2023; pages 25–26), its retirement application (Form 245, Revised 8/2024; page 3) and the list of participating employers in its ATRS 2025 Annual Report (PDF pages 94–97); and Act 107 of 2023 (§ 24-7-502(a)(6)(B)). Before you take any of these jobs, confirm your own situation with ATRS at (501) 682-1517 or info@artrs.gov. The rest of ATRS’s return-to-work rules are in our ATRS return-to-work guide.

2. Your teaching license. SpecialEdResource asks for special education certification and a teaching license from any US state, with the license current, or renewed before you start. An Arkansas standard license lasts five years, and renewal is online, in the Arkansas Educator Licensure System (AELS). On its renewal page, Arkansas’s Division of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) says: “Educators may begin the renewal process at any time during the fifth year of their educator license.” Our application’s license question says:

   Answer Yes if your license is current, or if it has expired or is inactive and you’ll renew it before you start. We check licenses before the first interview.

   Arkansas also has a Lifetime Teaching License for holders of an Arkansas standard license, current or expired, who are 62 or older or have retired from ATRS. The State Board of Education’s rule says “A teacher holding a lifetime teaching license is not required to renew his or her teaching license”, and DESE charges no fee for it. SpecialEdResource accepts an Arkansas Lifetime Teaching License as a current teaching license. Who qualifies, and how renewal works, are in our Arkansas teaching license guide.

3. Retiree health insurance. ATRS says retiree health insurance is run by the Employee Benefits Division (EBD), not by ATRS (its Insurance page). If you have ARBenefits retiree coverage, check with EBD before you take a new job, and before you drop or change that coverage. EBD’s toll-free number, listed on ATRS’s Insurance page, is 877-815-1017. What EBD’s own documents say about going back to work is in section 9 of our ATRS guide.

4. Social Security, if you’re under full retirement age. On its Retirement FAQ page, ATRS says: “ATRS retirees have the double benefit of both ATRS lifetime benefits and Social Security benefits.” If you get Social Security and are under full retirement age for all of 2026, SSA’s earnings limit is $24,480, and wages from every job count. SSA withholds part of your benefits when your earnings go over it. If 2026 is the year you reach full retirement age, a higher limit applies. SSA’s earnings test is for Social Security retirement, dependent and survivor benefits. If you get Social Security disability insurance, or a widow(er)’s or child’s benefit because you are disabled, ask SSA before you take any job. SSA’s operating manual says “Do not count bona fide pension payments.” As we read it, that covers your ATRS pension. What $24,480 means in tutoring hours is below; check your own case with SSA.

Tutoring income: what the job pays

Starting pay: $23/hour, W-2. All tutors can earn a 10% performance bonus in any pay period when they tutor at least 10 hours and turn in session notes on time.

You're paid for tutoring time. Prep and notes are not paid separately; the session rate covers them. SpecialEdResource provides AI summary tools that make note-writing mostly copy and paste.

Pay, the bonus and the schedule, in detail

How many hours can I tutor and stay under the Social Security earnings limit?

If you get Social Security and are under full retirement age for all of 2026, the limit is $24,480. At $23 an hour, that is about 1,064 hours of tutoring in the year. At $25.30, the rate in a pay period that earns the bonus, it is about 968 hours. The $25.30 figure holds only if every pay period earns the bonus; in a pay period that does not, every hour is paid at $23, so the real figure falls between the two.

This is arithmetic, not a schedule or a promise. Available hours depend on student demand and schedule fit, and wages from any other job count toward the same limit. SSA’s earnings test is for Social Security retirement, dependent and survivor benefits. If you get Social Security disability insurance, or a widow(er)’s or child’s benefit because you are disabled, ask SSA before you take any job. These are SSA’s 2026 figures; SSA publishes each new year’s amounts in the fall. In your grace year, a monthly test may apply instead of the yearly limit. SSA can tell you how the earnings test applies to you, and our Social Security guide covers both points.

Questions about tutoring after retirement

Can a retired teacher work in Arkansas right away, or is there a four-month wait?

It depends on who you work for. ATRS’s 2025/2026 Member Retirement Planner says: “Unless you are the Normal Retirement Age, you will have a mandatory four-month termination separation period from any ATRS covered employment beginning on your effective retirement date. You may work outside of ATRS covered employment. However, you cannot engage in any substitute, part-time, or full-time work, or be paid for any work or professional development training, by any ATRS covered employer for four months.” If you took an age-and-service retirement and were not at ATRS’s Normal Retirement Age when you retired, that four-month termination separation period applies to you. That period is counted from your effective retirement date, which is always the first day of a month, not your last day of work. For a July 1 retiree with the separation period, ATRS’s Retirement FAQ says: “May return to covered employment after October 31”. ATRS’s Normal Retirement Age is 65 with at least 5 years of service, or at least 60 when your age plus your years of service add up to 98 or more. With 28 years of service, ATRS allows a full age-and-service retirement at any age. That is not the same as Normal Retirement Age: if you retired that way before age 60, the four-month termination separation period applies to you. During the separation period, Arkansas law (Act 107 of 2023) also says a retiree shall not “Render any compensable services to or on behalf of” a covered employer. SpecialEdResource is a private company and does not appear on ATRS’s list of participating employers (June 30, 2025). If you are still in your separation period, ATRS’s Working and Retirement page says “you are strongly encouraged to contact ATRS for guidance at (501) 682-1517 or INFO@ARTRS.GOV before returning to work.” If you retired from ATRS by disability, ask ATRS before taking any job. Confirm with ATRS how these rules apply to your plans before you start.

My Arkansas teaching license has expired. Can I still apply?

Yes. If your license has expired or is inactive, you can still apply, as long as you’ll renew it before you start. On its reinstatement page, DESE says: “An expired license may be reinstated by completing the requirements for renewal.” Its renewal page adds: “New cleared background checks are required for renewal.” Renewal also takes professional development. If you don’t work for an Arkansas public school, DESE’s renewal page says teachers who work for private schools, colleges or other organizations that employ licensed teachers are responsible for working through those employers or “finding professional development opportunities on their own,” and “Individuals who are not employed will be responsible for securing the required hours of professional development.” The steps are in our Arkansas teaching license guide.

Is this a W-2 job?

Yes. You’d be a part-time W-2 employee. SpecialEdResource withholds federal income tax, Arkansas state income tax and your share of Social Security and Medicare, pays the employer’s half (7.65% of your pay) and carries workers’ comp. You get a W-2 each January and don’t file quarterly estimated taxes for this job. If you get Social Security and are under full retirement age, these wages count toward the earnings test.