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National Teacher Day is
always the Tuesday of
the first full week of
May.
An Arkansas teacher,
Mrs. Mattye Whyte
Woodridge, began
corresponding with
political and education
leaders as early as 1944
about the need for a
national day honoring
teachers. One of the
leaders she wrote to was
Eleanor Roosevelt, who
persuaded the 81st
Congress to proclaim a
National Teacher Day in
1953.
In the late 1970s,
the National Education
Association, its Indiana
and Kansas state
affiliates, and its
local affiliate in Dodge
City, Kansas, all
lobbied Congress on
behalf of creation of a
national day celebrating
teachers. Congress
declared March 7, 1980
as National Teacher Day
for that year only.
NEA and its
affiliates continued to
observe Teacher Day on
the first Tuesday in
March until 1985, when
NEA and the National PTA
established Teacher
Appreciation Week as the
first full week of May.
The NEA Representative
Assembly then voted to
make the Tuesday of that
week National Teacher
Day.
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