Lily Eskelsen Garcia

Lily Eskelsen García is a teacher whose work in education spans from her beginning as a school lunch lady to being elected as the first Latina president of the largest union in the United States, the 3-million-member National Education Association. Her career includes service as her state’s Teacher of the Year, as president of the Utah State Retirement system, as her party’s nominee for U.S. Congress, Vice President of Brussels-based Education International, and as Commissioner for President Barack Obama’s White House Commission for Education Excellence for Hispanics. She is the founder of an endowed scholarship program at the University of Utah for bilingual aspiring teachers, Maestros Para Los Niños.

Lily and her husband, Alberto Garcia, are the author/illustrator of the bilingual book, Rabble Rousers: Fearless Fighters for Social Justice, which they published to raise funds to help undocumented Dreamers.

Lily retired as president of NEA in 2020 and is currently pursuing a doctorate in Teaching, Learning and Culture.

Lily believes that no matter how students arrive, no matter what their learning conditions, their home conditions, or their health conditions, educators have the sacred duty to be professionals and to care for the whole student - mind, body, and character. She believes that professionalism carries the responsibility to take action, individually and collectively, to fight to make the promise of public education a reality and to prepare the whole and happy child to succeed in becoming a whole and happy adult.