The Jay school superintendent and school board should be commended for having to work under the conditions I have witnessed while attending the past few meetings.

Anyone attending a school board meeting must file up the stairs through two lines of teachers holding up signs about their loss of respect and money. Then, when the meeting begins, they proceed to do their best to disrupt the meeting, asking picky questions and talking among themselves.

They talk about the students being hurt by their lack of contract, yet they choose to gather each morning, arriving just in time to start teaching . Who is watching the children while this is occurring? They talk about the children not getting help after school, yet they are refusing to stay and help them, all the while receiving the same pay and benefits they would get if they did stay.

While workers in the private sector must absorb increases in health insurance costs, our teachers feel they are entitled to both the best of health insurance at very little increase in cost, plus a big raise.

It is not lack of appreciation or respect toward them, but common sense that says, “enough.”

It won’t be long before more than 50 percent of the taxpayers in Jay will be retired and living on Social Security. We cannot afford to continue to pay the lucrative salary and benefit packages the Jay teachers have enjoyed in the past. It has nothing to do with respect and appreciation.

Ellen Levesque, Jay

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