Who do I think I am?

So... with all of the No Child Left Behind stuff, our school like many schools are struggling to find teachers who are credentialed. Our school hired teachers last year on the stipulation that we immediately enroll in a credentialing program (so as to be in compliance). Well, a year passes and we're still down a significant amount of teachers. We find out our school is in jeopardy of closing but will probably remain open. Our bosses tell us we'll get a bonus for staying $500 until the end of the year(and newly hired teachers will get it as soon as they are hired). That night... while looking for new employment... I find an ad for open positions for our school for $3000 more than what the current teachers are getting paid for less experience and less education. Well, ef that. So the remaining teachers wrote a letter to our school, basically saying that it is only fair that we get compensated at an equal base pay plus our annual raise (which they manage to take away any time the base pay is raised). They read the letter and then go around telling upper administration, "who do they think they are? what do they think they are entitled to?" (Note: we work with moderate/severe special education so we are literallly dealing with kids who bite, kick, hit, spit, pee on you, ejaculate on you, and smear feces on the walls, etc.) Well... we're the ones keeping your school open, jerks. In addition to that, our school owner (we're non-public, for profit) says that we were disrespectful by the letter, that we should have come in individually (Which was done last year by the previous teachers and DENIED... thus, SEVEN quit and we took over), and that WE DECIDED THAT WE WERE WORTH MORE THAN WE WERE GETTING PAID CURRENTLY and jumped the gun. EF THAT. Nevertheless, they had no choice but to give us our raise. But not without griping about how disrespectful we were by requesting what was fair during every other conversation we have with our boss.