I cannot help but feel deeply saddened by the plight of the Orono teachers who wait for a reasonable contract from their school committee. As a parent of two Orono school children, I have watched for eight years as dedicated teachers leave school most afternoons after 5 p.m. Many are seen as well on Saturdays and Sundays working in their classrooms.

I am saddened still further when we visit Germany once a year, for I am forced to compare our nation’s situation with a country which provides teacher salaries to each of its other professions.

When will we as a society recognize that the education of our children is the most important job we have to do and to provide? When will we, too, reward our dedicated teachers in a manner which says that we want the very best for our children? Only then will we have the quality which we seek. In Orono that quality does not exist across the board, nor does such exist in any school system nationwide. However, the level of teaching skill and dedication in our town is exceptional. If we choose to provide a climate which nurtures the finest in our children, we must provide a climate which nurtures the finest in our teachers.

It is ludicrous to speak of global competition and a desire to be number one in math and science worldwide, when we provide remuneration for our educators which cannot support a family at a level much above that considered to be poverty. How I wish that more of us could see and hear the disdain expressed in other lands as their citizens express dismay at such treatment of America’s most valuable human assets. Carolyn W. Leick Orono