My wife's a counselor and was a special ed teacher, so I'm acutely aware of their their dedication, motivation, the challenges they face, etc.
I understand you think you were praising teachers. And yes, it is a good thing that teachers are motivated despite their low pay. we collectively "value" their dedication to a job that pays little with almost zero opportunity for meaningful salary increase over the course of a career. You see that as some sort of altruistic sacrifice they are making for the greater good.
But teachers don't want your gratitude. They want to be "valued" not with your words and target gift cards during teacher appreciation week, but with resources necessary to do their job. Relative to this thread that means more security guards/cops at school, and tighter security restrictions. It also means not having to teach in portable classrooms. It means fewer students per class. It means not having to pay for school supplies out of their own pockets. It means dedicated TAs to help with classroom instruction and grading papers, which they have to do after hours at home at night after already working a 10 hour day. It means not protesting and/or threatening them if they're teaching the sometimes uncomfortable history of our country, or if they acknowledge and accept the sexuality or gender preferences of their students. They want the tools they need to do their job. And we don't equip them with that.
And for too long we've taken for granted that "idealistic, altruistic" people will take these essential jobs and teach our kids for us. But I'm not sure how much longer we can expect that. There are currently 573 open teacher positions in AISD alone. And a very large percentage of those aren't going to get filled for the next school year. And it's because we don't pay them enough for them to have to deal with the shit I outlined in the previous paragraph. You ask if I still think qualified and dedicated candidates would want to become teachers if the pay was $100k/year? FUCK YES I do! The more you increase compensation, the higher likelihood you will attract a larger number of more qualified candidates. It's fucking basic economics! If we paid teachers $100k per year, you could count the number of teacher openings on two hands. And maybe then teachers could afford to live in the same city as they kids they teach.
I know you aren't bagging on teachers. But we have to stop appreciating teachers with our words and start doing it with $$$. It's just more "thoughts and prayers".
Sorry for the rant and to derail a thread that's about dead kids. That's all I'll say on the subject.