My name is Ellie Graff and I’m a Junior at John Adams High School. I’ve been to a few school board meetings this year and I’ve seen a lot of passionate teachers come and speak about how there needs to be pay increases in the corporation, but I walked in being the only student in attendance, and I just want to say that I am a student and I care about my teachers and I’m here to make my voice heard. I have been in South Bend Community Schools since I was in Kindergarten and I have been extremely lucky to have very dedicated and special teachers guide me through my education and make me the person I am today. Teachers who you walk into their classroom and you would have no idea that they’re working up to three other jobs on the side and they’re exhausted and they’re not being compensated correctly for their work. These teachers don’t let you know that anything is wrong because they truly care about you and they want you to have a great education, and teachers who make it possible that we have students here who are qualifying for National Merit Scholarships. I just feel like, as a society, as a community, as a corporation, we are taking these teachers for granted. It’s great that we have these Chromebooks for all the middle schools and the high schools now, and it’s great that we might be getting $100,000 for the planetarium at Kennedy, but these things are extra. I understand that we have grants for this money to pay for these extra luxuries in the corporation but I really believe that all the resources we have need to [be used] for writing grants to get money for the teachers. We’ve had teachers leave to go find jobs elsewhere, not because they don’t like working here but because they need to make money to support themselves and their families and we just need to, as a whole, pay teachers like they have the most important job in the world, because they do. Thank you.