Arizona’s new Teacher of the Year is using her title to advocate for special ed inclusion

The Arizona Educational Foundation has announced its 2026 Arizona Teacher of the Year. It’s Tiffani Jaseph, a special education teacher at the K-5 Copper View Elementary School in the Sahuarita Unified School District.

Jaseph has been a teacher for 15 years, including at districts in Yuma and Tucson. She described winning the Teacher of the Year award as one of the most exhilarating moments of her life.

She joined The Show to discuss how she hopes to use this title to advance causes that are important to her.

Full conversation

TIFFANI JASEPH: My whole heart is in educational inclusion and being able to advocate for that and teach others about it and to really promote more knowledge and awareness around it. So my hope is to be able to use my voice for that this next year to share my voice on it, share messages, get people talking about it, the positivity that comes along with it.

And then, of course, as a lifelong learner, I’m also hoping to meet other educators and learn from them as well.

MARK BRODIE: So do you see this as maybe an opportunity, and perhaps even more than that, a responsibility as a special ed teacher to talk about your students and your population of students to people who maybe don’t know all that much about this demographic?

JASEPH: Absolutely. I really feel like I’m being given a chance to really open people’s minds and hearts to the amazing things that can happen when you merge special education and general education together. And I really want to break that stigma of that separation and maybe even fears and intimidation around the lines of students that have special needs, specifically higher support needs.

And so I’m really looking forward to really being the voice for special education teachers and also families of children who have special needs and really just kind of get people to realize that there’s so much amazing things that can happen in public schools.

Arizona Educational Foundation

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Handout

BRODIE: What specifically would you like people to know about the types of students that you teach?

JASEPH: The biggest things I would like people to know about my students is that they have so many capabilities. I understand that it would be intimidating and hard to invite students with significant needs inside your classroom or anywhere else for that matter. But there are so many abilities that my students have, and they bring so much beauty to anybody who’s around them.

And I get the privilege of seeing their smallest of progress and victories, which in the end are the biggest of victories. And it’s such a rewarding thing to be able to be around students with special needs. They teach you to slow down, and they really just bring a sense of genuine feelings when you’re around them.

BRODIE: It’s interesting to hear you say that some of the smallest gains can be some of the biggest gains. I would imagine for at least some people and maybe even some teachers, understanding that and recognizing that might require somewhat of a mindset shift, especially in a world in which there’s a lot of pressure on teachers — I don’t have to tell you that — there’s a lot of pressure on students to achieve, achieve, achieve.

JASEPH: Yes, absolutely. And that’s one of the things that I’ve learned. So I work with the general education teachers a lot because I need to make sure that they feel supported and that myself and my inclusion assistants — also known as paraprofessionals — can help our students navigate in the general education classroom and also support the teachers so they don’t feel alone.

And one of the biggest conversations I’ve had with them is to not put too much pressure on themselves. The first and honestly most important step is opening your classroom door to my students and allowing them to not just be a guest, but an actual integral part of their classroom, and then make them feel safe.

And then that’s when they’re going to see that they can make progress, just being a part of their classroom. And it doesn’t have to be acing a test. It can just be conversing with another student in the class. Or maybe they wrote a letter that they have never written before, or maybe they spoke a word that they’d never spoken before.

It can look different depending on the student. But if you just invite them into your classroom and make them a part of your classroom, that’s the biggest gift you can give to the students. And then everything just kind of flows from there.

BRODIE: What, in your mind, is the right way to merge special education students into general ed classrooms?

JASEPH: To me, it looks like there is a collaboration happening in the classroom. The students in my program are not just sitting in the back with an aide. They are being brought to work with the class. Maybe a paraprofessional or inclusion assistant needs to assist in some way, or the teacher needs to assist, but they’re actually working with the other students.

They’re being a part of whatever it is that it’s possible for them to be a part of. They don’t look separate in any way.

BRODIE: Are there some students for whom that is maybe not the right approach?

JASEPH: Honestly, that’s an amazing question, because there are some students where it really isn’t appropriate for them to be in the general education classroom. However, what I would say is that there’s still an inclusive piece that could potentially happen.

So if a student maybe has high medical needs, for example, and it’s really not safe for them to be in the general education classroom for a long period of time, maybe there can be some inventiveness that could happen where the student can be invited into the classroom at a certain time where things aren’t so structured and maybe they can stay for a shortened amount of time.

Maybe it can work the other way where a teacher or students can come and visit my classroom and work with the student in some capacity, maybe read them a book or maybe do playtime with them. There’s so much that can happen if you’re willing to just be open minded and inventive. But that’s a great question because we need to look at each individual student and for some students, you need to get pretty creative.

BRODIE: It sounds like creativity — that was the word that was coming to mind as you were talking — and it sounds like creativity is kind of the key here.

JASEPH: Absolutely. Seeing the student as a human and somebody who is deserving of attention and who’s deserving to have access to an education, and that can look different.

BRODIE: Is it your belief that there are enough resources in Arizona dedicated to special ed?

JASEPH: You know, that’s something that’s tricky because I think as special education teacher, we always feel like we need more. There needs to be more resources, there needs to be more things that we can get our hands on. There always feels like there’s a need.

But what I will say is that it’s up to us educators to again, go back to that word of creativity and, you know, being inventive and willing to work with what it is that we have. Because honestly, the most important thing that you should be providing to your students is love. And that’s free.

BRODIE: So I’ve got to ask, what was your students’ reaction your first day back in the classroom after being named the Teacher of the Year?

JASEPH: It’s so cute because I have students of varying abilities. So for some of them, it’s a little bit hard to comprehend and understand what happened. But one of my students saw some decorations that my inclusion assistants made for me and some pictures that were up. And he told me happy birthday. And so he obviously knew that I needed to be celebrated.

But they just, they’ve been so cute. I mean, the parents of my students have been so supportive. I’ve received so many calls and texts, and so I feel the love even if they can’t really understand it or say it. I mean, I absolutely feel the love.

BRODIE: It’s the thought that counts, right?

JASEPH: Absolutely.