Schools are facing Teacher Shortage in Arizona.

According to an Arizona School Personnel Administrators Association survey conducted at the end of 2016, School teachers in Arizona are leaving their jobs faster than they can be replaced.

But the question is that why are school teachers quitting?

The president of the Arizona School Board Association ‘Julie Bacon’ thinks the public education is not given enough priority

Julie Bacon comes from the line of educators, which her daughter continued by becoming a teacher, but not in Arizona.

Julie Bacon also said, that her daughter does not think the teachers are supported in Arizona.

Right now in Arizona there are more than two thousand teacher positions, but only some will be filed and among them many would be under qualified employees.

But the problem is not exactly that, the state is facing shortage of teachers.

State Superintendent of public instruction Diane Douglas said that there is no shortage of people who are certified to teach, but the shortage is in the people who are choosing that certification to teach.

Low pay and low support makes the job unattractive.

Average Salary of Teacher in Arizona

So what do we need to fix this problem? Voters may recall Prop 123 as a boost in funding.

"Despite all the money [Prop 123] put into education, (it) still left us $1.5 billion in the red," said Bacon.

But Diane Douglas has a plan.

"It's not a one-answer-fits-all and I think we have to look at a lot ways to do it," Douglas said. "Our new plan is the compensation piece, the support in the classroom piece and the preparation piece."

She calls it the "Arizona Kids Can't Wait" plan.

But it is still not guaranteed that teachers will get paid more. The plan recommends a 5 percent pay raise for teachers. Which is up to the districts to decide at the local level, and it is a tough decision considering the fact that Arizona ranks near the bottom among U.S. states in K-12 funding year after year.

Fort Lauderdale Airport Shooting

AMandeep