Use Firecalc -
www.firecalc.org - to plan an early retirement with pension kicking in later.
Look into the key aspects of your pension: when do you get vested (often different pensions vest at different ages), when can you retire, what amount of pension will you receive, what are the penalties for retiring early, can you purchase years, do they have lump sum option, etc. etc.
The wife and I are also teachers, and we have pensions lined up as well. Ours (and they all vary, so don't assume yours is like mine unless you live in Nevada) requires at least 5 years to vest and then lets you retire at age 65, lets you retire at age 60 if you have at least 10 years, and lets you retire at any age with 30 years of service. You can buy a max of 5 years. Each year you take it before that retirement age cuts it by 4%
I have a spreadsheet mapping out a bunch of different options (retiring with X years of service and buying 0 and retiring at age 45, same but retiring at 50, same but retiring at 55, same but retiring at 60, retiring with X and buying 5 and retiring at 45, 50, 55, 60, etc)
All the graphs have different crossover points where it's best to do action X depending on how long we will live, assumed rates of return, etc.
Our current plan based on that info, plan A , is to buy 5 years (which we can purchase rolling over from a 403b/457b, so tax free). We'll stop working at about age 35 to early retire. Then at age 50 we'll "retire" from the district (though we won't have worked for them for 15 years at that point) and start collecting the pension (even though it will only be 60% of what we would get if we waited until age 60). Even if we don't need the money at that point, it's mathematically superior to start taking it then and investing it.
Our plan B is to work until age 47. Then we can fully retire, get our pension (cause we'll have hit the 30 years to retire at any age with no penalty - 25 working years since age 22, plus purchase 5 years). Would rather not have that one happen. Although I do love my job, the kids are so awesome.
Anyways, that's a little about my pension, but as you can see there are many, many variables. Check out the details and report back and maybe we can help you figure out a course of action.