This 2026 Educator of the Year says her teaching is shaped by her special needs as a student

The Arizona Education Association has announced its two 2026 Educators of the Year Award — and Kaitlin Moriarty is one of them.

Moriarty teaches third grade in the Cartwright School District in Phoenix; she started there teaching kindergarten about eight years ago. And her path to the classroom is shaped, in part, by her own experiences as a student.

The Show spoke with Moriarty earlier and asked what she sees now in the classroom and how her third graders are doing.

Full conversation

KAITLIN MORIARTY: My third graders definitely had strengths and as well as struggles this year. It’s really rewarding to work in third grade because you see from the beginning of the year, they’re kind of early childhood, and then they grow and mature. So it’s really cool to see that.

I think what I’ve noticed the most is they don’t really know how to socialize with each other as well as before, because I think a lot, there’s a lot of screen time, maybe not playing outside as much as in the past. So I definitely have to kind of teach how we will all play together and more of those social skills than in the past per se.

MARK BRODIE: Well, and third grade’s also kind of an interesting, as you reference, a transition time. It’s sort of traditionally when we hear that students stop learning to read and start reading to learn.

KAITLIN MORIARTY: Yes.

MARK BRODIE: Is that still pretty much the case?

KAITLIN MORIARTY: Yes, that’s still pretty much the case. There are some students who struggle and are not on grade level. But I think that is an issue that we’re seeing across the country in any school, any classroom.

But yes, it's reading to learn. So, we’re kind of looking in the text for still the main idea, key details, but also context clues, inferencing, kind of deeper thinking like that.

MARK BRODIE: Sure. So, how has your childhood impacted your decision to become a teacher and sort of how you go about doing your job?

KAITLIN MORIARTY: Well, so my mom was a teacher, so I kind of got a front-row seat to how she conducted her classroom. She was a kindergarten teacher.

MARK BRODIE: Was she your teacher?

KAITLIN MORIARTY: No, she was not my teacher. She went back to school when I was in middle school, and so that was really cool to see that. And then she got her master’s after that.

So helping out in her classroom when I was older was definitely a learning experience for me. And then my childhood, I had some really great teachers, and I also had a really bad experience. I had a first-grade teacher who made me cry every single day.

MARK BRODIE: Oh my gosh.

KAITLIN MORIARTY: So I actually was pulled out of the classroom after she made me stand in front of the class and tell everyone why I told my parents she was a bad teacher. So my mom pulled me out of school the next day, and I was homeschooled.

So that was kind of a traumatic experience, and I told myself I never want to be that teacher to any child, because I don’t want to make someone afraid of me or feel bad about who they are. Because at the time I was struggling to read, and I was struggling in math as well. So that definitely was a formative experience.

MARK BRODIE: Wow, that sounds traumatic.

KAITLIN MORIARTY: Yes, it was traumatic.

MARK BRODIE: My goodness. So, you mentioned that you struggled with reading and math. You have something called dyscalculia, is that right?

KAITLIN MORIARTY: Yes, yes.

MARK BRODIE: And this is basically like, if you think of what dyslexia is to reading, this is basically that for math?

KAITLIN MORIARTY: A little bit. It gets mischaracterized as that, but it’s when you transpose numbers. About 3% to 7% of the population has this, so it’s easy to put it in with something else. So, originally I had reading, writing and math for special education, but I was able to exit the reading and writing.

But I still do struggle with math concepts, and I have a working memory deficit as well. So storing things into my long-term memory has always been a challenge for me, especially testing.

I would really struggle with exams, so I had to stay after school a lot in high school. I had really great teachers that were willing to do that and tutor me, so I was really able to reach where I needed to go, but that is definitely a challenge for me.

MARK BRODIE: So besides the tutoring, how did you work to overcome that when you were going through school?

KAITLIN MORIARTY: I was placed into special education in fourth grade, and then I had really great special education teachers that were able to figure out my learning style. I had pull-out special education, so I was in a small learning group of about six children.

And then in middle school, I did something called expeditionary learning. I went to a charter school. So I had a great experience there. Expeditionary learning’s pretty much hands-on learning, and then from there I went to the public high school, and I just had a really great special ed administrative person as well as teachers that would work with me.

MARK BRODIE: So, how have you taken those memories and sort of the lessons that you learned going through school, dealing with your own learning differences, and how do you apply those now that you are in front of the classroom?

KAITLIN MORIARTY: I think understanding kids for who they are first and forming relationships first matters the most due to that first-grade experience. I wanted to be understood as a person, not just as a student who couldn’t read. So being a teacher who’s going to get to know a student is important to me, building a safe community environment is really important to me.

So, that’s what I focus on first, and then I can get to academics, as well as just making sure their basic needs are taken care of. So, always having snack in the classroom, I’m a really big proponent of that.

I like to keep cold waters in my classroom in the fridge, so my class will always be like, “Do you have a cold water? Can I get a water?” And I’m like “Sure, yeah.” So, you know, just making sure that their needs are met so that they can learn the best that they can.

MARK BRODIE: So, in terms of the academics, are you able to use sort of the teaching to also get to know your students, in addition to making sure there’s snacks and water and talking to them during lunch and things like that? Like, are you able to sort of use your lesson planning to achieve that?

KAITLIN MORIARTY: Yeah, that’s actually a great question. This year I really tried to lean into that. With AI, we made decodable stories. So based on their interests, what they would talk to me about at lunch or maybe a social situation that was going on at the playground that they needed kind of guidance working through, I would create that decodable story using AI and then pass that out and we would talk about it and read it.

So, they’re working on a reading skill or a phonics skill, but then they’re also getting a social skill as well embedded in there.

MARK BRODIE: What does it mean to you to win this award?

KAITLIN MORIARTY: I was not expecting to win this award, but I’m really excited and I am proud of myself. I am happy that I’m being recognized for the work that I do, because a lot of my life I feel is this job. I pour a lot of my heart and soul into my profession.

I would like to have more free time outside of the profession, but it is what it is. So just seeing, being recognized for the hard work that I’m doing in the classroom as well as outside the classroom is really important to me.

MARK BRODIE: Based on the timing of this, like was school out already when this was announced? Like are your students aware of the fact that you won this?

KAITLIN MORIARTY: Yes. So, I told my class I might win this award, and they were like, “Well, let us know, good luck.” And then over the weekend I won the award, so I brought it in on that Monday and they were very excited, and I let them touch it or hold it. Things like that.

Some of them were like, “I want to be a teacher, I want to be famous.”

MARK BRODIE: [Laughter] That’s fantastic. Excellent. All right. That is Kaitlin Moriarty, a third-grade teacher in the Cartwright Elementary School District, also one of the recipients of the Arizona Education Association’s 2026 Educators of the Year Award. Kaitlin, thanks so much for coming in, and congratulations on the award.

KAITLIN MORIARTY: Thank you so much for having me.

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