I am a faithful Friday Acorn reader and a Simi Valley first- grade teacher. After reading your Sept. 22 article regarding teach- ers' raises, I had two thoughts.

First, I appreciated you cov- ering the fact that our past raises were low. In reality, they probably didn't even cover the rise in the cost of living, so teachers are quite happy with this raise.

I was distressed, however, to hear that your opinion of teach- ers is that now that we have a raise we have to perform because you will be watching us. Does that mean that all the times we re- ceived low raises we should have been trying less? For your infor- mation, most of us select the teaching profession because we love the kids, and raise or not, we always try our best.

Most of our schools have had a steady rise in API scores. Our raise is not to motivate us to try harder but to allow us to pay our bills just like everyone else. Did you know that many of the single teachers have to take additional part-time jobs to make ends meet? Your comment suggests that our raises will be buying us new cars. Do the math. Our raises give us an additional $200 to $300 per month, hardly enough to go on a shopping splurge. Your com- ment was insulting, offensive and way out of line.

Second, I'm greatly disap- pointed in Greg Stratton's quote. Shame on you, Greg, for making teachers feel guilty for their raise. What other profession would make their employees feel they had to choose between their raise and janitorial supplies? Per- haps Greg would like to volunteer a portion of his paycheck towards our cleaning supplies.

I'm thankful that we have chil- dren and parents who appreciate us because if everyone felt like you, teaching would be a thankless job. Rhonda Cieplechowicz Sycamore Elementary teacher Simi Valley