Letters: Teachers work too hard to be treated like loafers

It seems as if everyone is attacking public school teachers, and as a public school teacher, I am shocked. We pay a lot of taxes in Cherry Hill, but our costs for education do not stem from inflated teacher salaries. The median salary for New Jersey teachers is $60,000; the median salary in Cherry Hill is $54,899. The cost per student in New Jersey is $13,860; in Cherry Hill it's $12,636. Teachers are attacked for not accepting the pay freeze that our administrators agreed to, but the administrators' union struck a deal for a raise and untouched medical benefits before agreeing to the freeze. Teachers still work at rates negotiated in 2007, plus we work beyond our contracted hours.

I personally wrote more than 100 college recommendation letters this year alone, and I know teachers who wrote even more. That's in addition to evening and weekend hours of lesson planning and grading, acting as faculty advisers for clubs and activities, sewing costumes and building sets for dramas, supervising dances, and volunteering for graduation projects. We come in early and stay after school to help students individually with makeup work, and organize and supervise fashion shows, bake sales, concerts, and poetry slams.

These activities are not part of our contract, and we are not paid for them. We do all of this because we are committed to our students. We may not need daily thanks from our politicians or the community, but we don't deserve the attacks, either.

Noreen Cunningham

Mount Laurel