(Continued from Page 1) get paid what I’m worth

(Continued from Page 1) get paid what I’m worth and support my family the way I’ve always wanted to.”

He said that the presentation of the teachers’ case for higher pay was clearer this year than it has ever been, and that he felt it had all been a waste of time and effort. “If you can’t change anyone’s mind through clear logic, then nothing will work,” Bomberger said.

At one of the first school board •meetings he ever attended in Rappahannock as a new teacher, Bomberger said that he told the members how hard it was to make ends meet on a teacher’s salary. “One of the members said that that’s just the way it is when you’re young and told me to wait until I had been here awhile for things to change," Bomberger said. “I waited, and things have never changed.

“It seems like I’m always talking in a defeatist attitude, and I don’t want to be that way for the rest of my life, so I’m going to go somewhere to make a positive difference.”

Although elementary school teacher Lynne Baines feels defeated at times, too, she has decided to remain in Rappahannock and keep working to better the teaching situation. She has been teaching in Rappahannock for 13 years and besides being' concerned about teachers’ salaries, she has also been disturbed by what she sees as a changing attitude towards teachers.

“It is disappointing that people in the county don’t feel like teachers deserve salaries that would allow a decent standard of living or that are in line with the training teachers have,” Baines said. “Students and the public don’t respect teachers like they used to, and they are always concerned about their rights. I wonder where teachers’ rights start.”

She said that the worst time in Rappahannock for teacher morale and turnover rate was eight or nine years ago, and that she fears the same situa