Retire from your school district without leaving a dime on the table
CalPERS Ready is the only step-by-step school built exclusively for California classified employees — custodians, paraprofessionals, clerical staff, maintenance workers, and campus aides — who are 2–10 years out and want to walk into retirement knowing exactly what they're getting, why, and how to protect it.
"You earned this retirement — I'm just here to make sure CalPERS doesn't short-change you on it."— Dora Edney
What you'll learn
What you'll be able to do
- Navigate CalPERS.com with confidence — locate your member account, service credit history, and benefit statements without getting lost
- Calculate your estimated monthly retirement allowance using CalPERS tools and understand every factor that changes that number
- Compare all CalPERS retirement option elections (Option 1–4 and Unmodified) and choose the one that fits your family's financial situation
- Identify the exact documents you must gather and deadlines you must meet to file a smooth, delay-free retirement application
- Compose and ask the 20 critical questions CalPERS representatives must answer for you before you sign anything — and know a good answer from a bad one
- Understand your post-retirement health benefits (PEMHCA), Medicare coordination, and how to protect your coverage for life
How it works
A school that adapts to you
This isn't a set of static videos. Every lesson is generated live and tuned to where you actually are.
We learn your level
A quick placement check tailors your starting point so you're never bored or lost.
Lessons adapt as you go
Each lesson is written for your pace and your goal, adjusting as your skills grow.
Your AI coach keeps you moving
Checkpoints, feedback, and gentle nudges turn progress into a real result.
The curriculum
What's inside your school
6 modules · 29 lessons
Getting to Know CalPERS.com — Your Home Base
Orients classified employees to the CalPERS member portal so they can find, read, and trust every tool available to them online.
- 1.1Creating and Securing Your my|CalPERS AccountIncluded
- 1.2Reading Your Member Dashboard Like a ProIncluded
- 1.3Locating Your Service Credit HistoryIncluded
- 1.4Understanding Your Annual Member StatementIncluded
- 1.5Using CalPERS.com Resources: Publications, Videos, and WebinarsIncluded
Your Retirement Benefit — How It's Built and What Changes It
Teaches the exact formula CalPERS uses to calculate a classified employee's monthly allowance and every variable that raises or lowers it.
- 2.1The CalPERS Retirement Formula ExplainedIncluded
- 2.2How Your Membership Tier Affects Your FormulaIncluded
- 2.3Final Compensation: One-Year vs. Three-Year AverageIncluded
- 2.4Using the CalPERS Retirement Estimate CalculatorIncluded
- 2.5What Can Increase or Decrease Your Monthly BenefitIncluded
Retirement Option Elections — Protecting Yourself and Your Family
Compares every CalPERS retirement option so employees can make an informed, family-centered election before they sign anything.
- 3.1The Unmodified Allowance — Maximum Benefit, Maximum RiskIncluded
- 3.2Option 1 — The Lump-Sum Survivor BenefitIncluded
- 3.3Options 2W and 3W — Monthly Allowance for Your BeneficiaryIncluded
- 3.4Option 4 — Custom Continuance ArrangementsIncluded
- 3.5Choosing the Right Option for Your HouseholdIncluded
Buying Back Time and Boosting Your Benefit
Covers the service credit purchase and reciprocity options that classified employees frequently overlook, often leaving money on the table.
- 4.1What Service Credit Purchases Are Available to YouIncluded
- 4.2How to Request a Cost Statement and Read ItIncluded
- 4.3CalPERS Reciprocity — Protecting Benefits Across Public EmployersIncluded
- 4.4Sick Leave Conversion — Free Service Credit You May Already HaveIncluded
Filing Your Retirement Application — Documents, Deadlines, and No Delays
Guides employees through the complete retirement application process so paperwork errors and missing documents never delay their first check.
- 5.1When to Submit Your Application — The Critical TimelineIncluded
- 5.2The Retirement Application Checklist — Every Document You NeedIncluded
- 5.3Completing the CalPERS Retirement Application Step by StepIncluded
- 5.4Working With Your District's HR or Payroll OfficeIncluded
- 5.5Tracking Your Application and Knowing Your First Check DateIncluded
Health Coverage After Retirement — PEMHCA, Medicare, and Lifetime Protection
Demystifies post-retirement health benefits, Medicare coordination, and the steps needed to keep coverage intact for life.
- 6.1How PEMHCA Works for Retired Classified EmployeesIncluded
- 6.2Enrolling in CalPERS Health Plans at RetirementIncluded
- 6.3Medicare Part A and Part B — When to Enroll and Why It MattersIncluded
- 6.4How CalPERS Health Coverage Coordinates With MedicareIncluded
- 6.5The 20 Critical Questions to Ask Your CalPERS RepresentativeIncluded
Who it's for
Is this you?
The campus custodian
Has 18 years on the job and a retirement date in mind, but has never once logged into CalPERS.com — this school gets them from zero to fully prepared.
The veteran paraprofessional
Spends every day supporting students with special needs and deserves a retirement that actually reflects every year of service she's accumulated.
The district office clerk
Processes paperwork for everyone else but has no idea what her own retirement application requires — this school changes that completely.
The maintenance worker nearing 60
Wants to protect his spouse after he's gone but doesn't understand the survivor benefit options well enough to make a confident choice.
The campus aide with a health coverage gap
Terrified of losing health insurance at retirement and has no idea how PEMHCA, Medicare, and CalPERS health plans all fit together.
The classified employee who worked multiple districts
Has service credit scattered across two public employers and needs to understand CalPERS reciprocity before any of it disappears.
Questions
Frequently asked
Your teacher
A note from your teacher
Dora Edney
If you're a classified school employee with retirement somewhere on the horizon, I want you to know something: the confusion you feel about CalPERS is not your fault. The system is genuinely complicated, the website isn't exactly user-friendly, and most of us never got a single hour of training on how any of it works. You learned your job — how to run a campus, support students, manage a building — and CalPERS was just this thing in the background you figured you'd deal with later. I get it. I was there too.
What I know now, having been through the CalPERS retirement process myself as a classified employee, is that the difference between a smooth, confident retirement and a stressful, costly one almost always comes down to preparation. Not luck. Not who you know in HR. Preparation. Knowing what your formula actually means. Knowing what your service credit history says and whether it's correct. Knowing which retirement option election protects your family without unnecessarily cutting your monthly benefit. These aren't complicated concepts once someone explains them in plain English — and that's exactly what I built this school to do.
I created CalPERS Ready because I watched too many colleagues retire under-informed. They didn't know about sick leave conversion. They didn't know the difference between one-year and three-year final compensation. They didn't know when to enroll in Medicare or what PEMHCA actually covers. And by the time they found out, some of those windows had already closed. I don't want that for you.
Everything in this school is practical and specific to classified employees — not certificated staff, not generic "government retirement" advice. Custodians, paraprofessionals, clerical staff, maintenance workers, campus aides — your tiers, your formulas, your documents, your deadlines. We go from logging into CalPERS.com for the first time all the way through protecting your health coverage for life after retirement. Step by step, in language that respects your intelligence without drowning you in acronyms.
You gave years to your school community. Now let's make sure CalPERS gives you everything you earned in return. I'm glad you're here — let's get you ready.
— Dora Edney
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- 6 modules, 29 lessons
- AI-adaptive lessons tuned to your level
- Quizzes & checkpoints to lock in progress
- Your own AI learning coach
- Learn on any device, at your pace
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