BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The Alabama State Department of Education kicked off its 6th annual Thank Alabama Teachers Month on Wednesday with an energetic celebration at Vestavia Hills Elementary Liberty Park, honoring teachers statewide for their role in what State Superintendent Eric Mackey called Alabama’s “dramatic improvements” in student learning.
Mackey, joined by Vestavia Hills Superintendent Todd Freeman and other education and city officials, praised teachers for giving “every child, every chance, every day” to learn and succeed.
Mackey credited teachers with the strong academic gains Alabama public school students have made following the years impacted by the pandemic.
“We now lead the nation in math recovery over the past five years – No. 1. We’re now No. 3 in the nation in reading recovery. And we have the highest graduation rate we’ve ever had, at 92%, six points above the national average.”
Mackey said the state has begun a multi-year campaign that aims both to celebrate current teachers and recruit new ones amid persistent shortages, especially in elementary, special education and early-childhood classrooms.
According to information the department provided to Alabama Daily News, school districts statewide reported more than 750 elementary, 350 early-childhood and 270 collaborative elementary special education positions at the start of this school year could not be filled with certified teachers.
When certified teachers can’t be found, schools sometimes hire long-term substitutes or teachers who obtain emergency certification – meaning they are working toward becoming a teacher but haven’t completed all of the steps yet.
Growing shortages mean the number of teachers using emergency certificates has also grown in recent years.
More than 3,000 teachers, or nearly 6% of Alabama’s educators, worked under emergency certificates during the 2023-24 school year – six times the number of teachers using emergency certificates before the pandemic.
Those teachers are not evenly distributed across the state but rather are disproportionately concentrated in high-poverty school districts, where recruiting and retaining certified teachers is most difficult.
Those numbers underscore why Mackey said Alabama must not only thank its teachers, but also encourage more young people to join them.
“If you want to invest in the lives of young people, if you want to do something where you feel every day at the end of the day, I may be tired, but I know I did something that made a difference in people’s lives, then be a teacher.”
Mackey also used the event to unveil the department’s new “Alabama Achieves” logo, which features a student in a graduation cap reaching for a star over the state’s outline – a symbol of keeping student success at the center of the department’s mission.
The celebration also included a video message from Gov. Kay Ivey, who proclaimed November as Thank Alabama Teachers Month.
“Our teachers inspire, challenge and believe in our students every single day,” Ivey said. “As a former teacher myself, I know there’s no greater reward than seeing your students succeed – and no greater gift than a simple, heartfelt ‘thank you.’”
Katie Collins, a Hoover elementary teacher and 2025 Alabama Teacher of the Year, told students that educators engage in “sacred work,” adding that teaching children is like gardening.
“Posted outside of my classroom door is the quote that states, ‘To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.’ We believe in the gardens that we are cultivating – the seeds that we plant, they matter,” Collins said.
Collins acknowledged that teaching has its challenges and that collaboration with colleagues is key to staying motivated.
“We need each other for momentum,” she said. “More than ever, we’ve got to connect.”