Letter: Hollister teachers deserve their due pay

I am a retired classified employee of 18 years K-12, Merced County.  I have seen it all. Heard it all, and lived through most of it.
Let’s grant our teachers their due pay!!
We either pay now or a higher price later!
When we cutback on any money from school programs or staff. We will pay the price in both poor education for our children, and poor educated teachers for our kids.
Just to give you an example of our problem with under educated kids of today; last week I observed a youth working in a retail store.  I wrote out a check to pay for some goods I purchased. It took the young person 30 minutes to figure out how to enter the check into the machine, and that was only after calling the boss at home to ask which end of the check to insert first! There was no manager on the premise to help this youngster. I felt sorry for this person.
Taking away or cutting back on anything is bad. It’s no good for anyone. We can’t remove a link from education and expect to get 100% success anywhere in the future of this country.  
I am a taxpayer, and would give teachers a 10% raise if they asked for it.
Personally I’m sick and tired of giving my hard-earned money to the federal government to built more jails and support prisoners. Let’s not invest in crime, only in the prevention of it, by putting more money in education and teachers.  
Please grant these hard working teachers their well deserved 6% raise. They are not asking for much.
FOR EVERY SUCCESSFUL PERSON IN THE WORLD THERE IS SUCCESSFUL TEACHER that worked hard.
Dolores Mendez, grandparent of Hollister student