I was privileged to attend a private Quaker school in the 1960s and 1970s. While it was a private school, it had a very small endowment, resources were scarce and budgets tight.

While the walls may have been crumbling and gyms doubled as auditoriums, what I remember most were the teachers. They were luminaries. I remember every single one of them with great fondness and admiration. How they brought ancient civilizations alive. How I longed to follow in the footsteps of 15th- and 16th-century European explorers, and most of all, how proud and accomplished I felt when I mastered geometry and advanced calculus under their expert tutelage.

The fact that I excelled in college and higher learning I owe to their dedication and passion for teaching. The classrooms were not state of the art, but the teachers were.

Should our current school district have $70 to $100 million to spend, allocate those funds to tripling teachers’ salaries, fully funding their pension plans and providing the best health care money can buy rather than building a new high school.

I succeeded in academia and life not because my high school campus was better than others, but because my teachers were.

Buildings don’t teach children … teachers do!

Donna L. Kipp

Sewickley

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