Dear Editor:

I am a Boothbay Region High School student and a teacher at the YMCA Montessori School and Child Enrichment Center. Being both a teacher and student, I see the many challenges and responsibilities that teachers and caregivers face and don't get credit for.

As a student, I see many students get into arguments with teachers, yell, say curse words, slam doors, and walk out of class. Teachers are always supposed to maintain “civil discourse” and help students learn, no matter how rude or unwilling the students are to listen. Some students have anger issues, “sensory issues,” and mental illnesses. These make it hard for teachers to work with these students. Sometimes the students take their frustration out on teachers. The teachers I have seen this happen to, always try to stay calm and keep teaching or helping the students, even if the teacher was hurt physically or emotionally.

Teachers have to grade homework, classwork, and have a lesson plan for each day. I have seen teachers take time from their breaks or lunch to help students with work and teachers come in earlier to help students.

At my YMCA workplace, many teachers have to buy classwork materials or decorations for their classroom with their own money and come in early or stay late to set it up. The teachers I work with stay late cleaning their classrooms too.

Teachers' pay needs to be increased. I work 8 and ½ hours in the summer at the YMCA daycare and last summer I made $15 an hour, with a ½ hour break. Some other daycare teachers I have talked to make around the same amount working year-round and the same hours.

I surveyed BRHS teachers about their pay and 13 teachers responded: 61.5% said they feel underpaid, and 69.2% feel underappreciated. When I asked how much they made, one teacher said “$41k/year. As a teacher, I purchase health insurance for my family, and after taxes and health insurance premiums, I take home only $900 every two weeks. Not a liveable wage at all for a person with two children!”

I believe we need to be kinder to our teachers and thank them for all they do, and please give them a raise.

Makayla Pinkham

BRHS rising senior