In April 2009, a high school principal in a large Arizona school district met individually with 18 of his most senior teachers to inform them that they would not have a job the following year. Why didn't tenure protect them from wholesale dismissal? The answer is they all had one thing in common: they were retirees who had been leased or hired back to fill their former positions and were collecting state pensions. Looking at the options and considering the overall high level of seniority of its teaching staff, the school board decided to preserve the jobs of recent hires and dispense with all rehired retired teachers in order to have a balance of new and experienced teachers. On the other hand, senior administrators had already forgone the protection of tenure and were under at-will or term contracts even before they took their pensions. The 18 Arizona teachers who took early retirement with the expectation of consistent reemployment in their old jobs seriously underestimated the risk they were taking.