Lily Eskelsen García opened her first board meeting as NEA president on Sept. 19 with the simple words of the association’s preamble and mission.

“We, the members of the National Education Association of the United States, are the voice of education professionals. Our work is fundamental to the nation, and we accept the profound trust placed in us,” she said.
Then García turned to Student Program Chair Chelsey Herrig to read the NEA mission.
“Our mission is to advocate for education professionals and to unite our members and the nation to fulfill the promise of public education to prepare every student to succeed in a diverse and interdependent world,” Herrig said.
The focused tone set by García was quickly followed by her trademark fun and energy. She lightened the mood with jokes, video presentations, and even had board member Jacqui Greadington, chair of the Black caucus, lead the board in the song, “This little light of mine.”
The biggest change made by García, however, was to dedicate a quarter of the two-day meeting to board committee work. Every board member was assigned to one of more than a dozen committees.
Vice President Becky Pringle organized the committee work, and she stressed the importance of the board members’ efforts. “Your work is an essential part of our journey to fulfill our mission, and advance the Strategic Goals adopted by the 2014 Representative Assembly,” she said.
Executive director John Stocks opened his report by turning to García and saying, “Let’s give our president a shout out … She’s doing a great job.”
García started her presidency on Sept. 1, and she immediately embarked on a “back to school” tour across the country.
“It’s been all about the back to school tour,” Stocks said. “By every measure, in each of the venues, it’s all been about the issues of politics, partners, policy and press. They’re all integrated.”
The tour actually started in Milwaukee, Wisc., when García and other labor leaders appeared with President Obama at a Labor Day rally. After the rally, she said the president asked if she and the other labor leaders wanted a ride home—as in, fly home on Air Force One.
Her chance to speak with the president came in the limo ride to the airport. She joked that she probably won’t be invited back because she monopolized the time. “It really was an incredible opportunity to spend just a few minutes speaking from the heart and not a script about our kids and what they need,” she said. “I had a good feeling about this very short conversation that we had.”
But that conversation wasn’t as amazing as the one García had with Andrea Rediske, the Florida mother of a brain-damaged and legally blind child who had cerebral palsy. Ethan was 11 when he died last February, but in his last few weeks of his life, he received harassing phone calls from his school district saying he needed to take his Florida standardized tests.
“There’s no word for how awful this is,” Andrea said of the harassment. “No mother should have to go through this.”
García had breakfast with Andrea on the “back to school tour” and told her that NEA is on a mission to stop this toxic testing. “I told her this makes no sense, and it’s actually hurting kids,” she said, to which Ethan’s mother said, “Put me to work.”
Enlisting parents to help fight against toxic testing is just one of the many hats that García is wearing. She is writing almost daily blog posts on Lily’s Blackboard, giving dozens of media interviews, and running the largest labor union in the country.
In a recent interview with the Washington Post, she was asked why she keeps talking about toxic testing. “I’ll be damned if I will sit quietly and play nice and say diplomatic things about something that has corrupted the profession I love,” she said.
The fire and the love was all on display during Garcia’s first-ever board meeting as president. As she prepared to adjourn the meeting on Sept. 20, she told the board, “I really, really love this job, and I want to do it well. With your help we’re going to do it.”