Lily Eskelsen García
| Lily Eskelsen García | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Lilia Laura Pace May 1, 1955 Fort Hood, Texas, U.S. |
| Organization | National Education Association |
| Home town | Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S. |
| Title | President, National Education Association |
| Predecessor | Dennis Van Roekel |
Lily Eskelsen García (born May 1, 1955) is an American teacher and trade union leader. As President of the 3 million-member National Education Association, she leads the largest professional employee organization in the United States.
Lily Eskelsen García was born Lilia Laura Pace on May 1, 1955, in Fort Hood, Texas. Her father was in the United States Army. Her mother is from Panama. After high school, she married Ruel Eskelsen, with whom she had two children before his death on March 18, 2011. Eskelsen García began her career as a cafeteria worker, and then as an aide to a special education teacher. At this teacher's suggestion, she went back to school to pursue a teaching degree. She worked her way through the University of Utah on scholarships, student loans, and as a starving folk singer, graduating magna cum laude in elementary education and later earning her master's degree in instructional technology.
In 1980, Eskelsen García went to work teaching fourth, fifth, and sixth grades at Orchard Elementary in the Granite School District in Utah. In 1989, she was named Utah Teacher of the Year. Later, while in union leadership positions, she taught homeless children in a single classroom at Salt Lake City's homeless Shelter, and the Christmas Box House Children's Shelter, a kindergarten through 6th grade one-room public school serving hard-to-place foster children in Salt Lake City.
The press coverage she received as a result of the Teacher of the Year award encouraged her to run for office, and in 1990 she won a write-in election as president of the Utah Education Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association (NEA). One of her initiatives as UEA president was to organize the Children at Risk Foundation; she served as its first president. She also served as president of Utah Retirement Systems.
...
Wikipedia