Teachers don't have it bad

A message to Sandra Pope of the Las Virgenes Educators Association: It's time for teachers everywhere to stop whining about their plight in life.

The fact is that teachers are only parttime employees, working nine or 10 months a year. Thus, a teacher who is paid $40,000 annually would be making over $50,000 if he or she worked fulltime like the rest of us.

Throw in the benefit package, the ridiculous amount of "holidays" and sick leave, and a $40,000 teacher is well over $60,000.

The reality is that any intelligent adult could teach children at the elementary school level, with or without a degree or training. Check out the home-schoolers. And please don't talk about how teachers are responsible for the future of our children.

Parents, not teachers, set the foundation for their kids. Teachers provide a necessary service, but their job no more important or sacred than anyone else's.

Now, get back in the classroom and make the taxpayers proud. Ken Grow Thousand Oaks