“Disrespected,” “burnt out” and in need of better pay: all words that Arizona teachers have used to describe how they feel after leaving the profession .
More than 8,000 teachers in in the state quit between 2024 and 2025. One thousand educators left between last July and November alone.
But students like Priscilla Dunkin — a fourth grader at Centennial Elementary School — know that a caring teacher can make all the difference, which is why she wants to appreciate her first grade teacher Ms. Raboza.
“I was a little bit of a troublemaker in second grade, but it’s okay because she helped me grow not being a troublemaker,” Priscilla says.
Priscilla’s classmate Dejonae Allen says librarian Mrs. Martell has inspired her to pursue the same career.
“Being a librarian, I think, is a really important job. And I think I just want to be caring for others and I want to help people learn how to read and to succeed in life,” Dejonae says.
Priscilla and Dejonae’s teacher Mrs. Groom also got some shoutouts.
“She’s a really cool teacher and she helps the kids whenever we need anything. She’s funny, she’s nice, she’s careful,” Priscilla says.
“I think it’s very cool because she was the one that taught me division is multiplication and it’s just backwards and I think I really like that about her,” Dejonae says.
Santiago Davila is a second grader at Davis-Romero Bilingual Elementary Magnet School. He says there are a few teachers he appreciates, like Señor Barcelo.
“He was pretty nice and he was fun, and he was a little funny,” Santiago says. “Once, I was struggling in math in first grade and he helped me.”
“And Señora Paress. She’s nice and strict at the same time, because she needs to be strict so we understand and we listen to her,” he says.
Meleia Anderson is an eighth grader at Orange Grove Middle School. She says her favorite teacher Mr. Bindschadler, who teaches gifted English for students in sixth through eighth grade, is a teacher she will never forget.
“The projects we do, they’re not like anything else. We’ve had simulations of the future and robots taking over, we’ve done magazines, we’ve done a murder mystery case trial,” Meleia says.
She says Mr. Bindschadler’s classroom is covered in Twilight Zone posters and graphics of different literary structures.
“I see it more as a room that I get to experience and I get to enjoy English everyday in,” Meleia says.
Despite students’ hard work in school and appreciation for their education, Arizona classrooms are among the least invested-in nationwide.
A new report from the National Education Association ranks Arizona as 49th in the nation for per-student spending and 39th for the average teacher starting salary.
Educational spending in the state is something even young students notice.
“Teachers are completely underpaid. They’re not appreciated in society’s standards, in society’s roles. They’re teaching the next generation and they’re not seen and heard as much as they should be,” Meleia says.
So what motivates them to keep saying ‘thank you’ to their teachers?
“If we didn’t have a school, I don’t think we’d be able to learn a lot. I don’t think that we’d have works and be able to know the amount of things like tying your shoes and just knowing how to spell,” Dejonae says.
Priscilla says she tries to thank Mrs. Groom everyday. “I personally think that it should be Appreciation Month for teachers because they would be really happy, but at least it’s not one day. A week is okay,” she says.
“They’re teaching us so when we go to college, we know enough stuff, so we can be good when you have a job and stuff,” Santiago says.
“When you can find a teacher like Mr. B, it not only makes me excited to go to school, but it actually makes me see the impact I can have on my future. I’ve read my stuff from sixth grade… it was something,” Meleia says through giggles. “I’ve seen the impact that he’s had and — not only Mr. B — all my science teachers, all my math teachers. I mean, just the drastic jump that I can have simply because they’ve decided to put effort into what they’re doing, I think is something that I’ll take with me forever.”
