Moss won the election with 50.3% of votes from a delegate assembly of nearly 6,000 members, according to the union. She narrowly avoided a with Kate Dias, president of the Connecticut Education Association, who received 31.2% of votes. Moss is the successor to Becky Pringle, who was president for two three-year terms and was unable to run again because of term limits.

Sean Spiller, former president of the New Jersey Education Association and a past candidate for governor, received 17.4% of votes, while Tania Kappner, an Oakland Unified School District teacher, secured 0.94%.

“Together, we will continue fighting for the resources, respect and professional voice educators deserve because when we invest in public education, we invest in the future of every student,” Moss said in a . “I look forward to building on our union’s proud legacy and working alongside our members to ensure every student, in every zip code, has access to a high-quality public education.”

Noel Candelaria, a special education teacher from El Paso, Texas, was after serving as the union’s secretary-treasurer. Robert Varela Rodriguez was elected secretary-treasurer. He previously taught special ed in California’s San Bernardino City Unified School District before serving on the NEA’s executive committee and board of directors.

NEA’s new leadership will take office Sept. 1, according to the .

Pringle, a science teacher from Philadelphia, has managed the 2.8-million member labor organization since she was first elected president in 2020. She had previously served as vice president and secretary-treasurer. NEA leadership is limited to two three-year terms. 

Among the four candidates competing for her spot are Princess Moss, current NEA vice president; Kate Dias, president of the Connecticut Education Association; Sean Spiller, former president of the New Jersey Education Association and past candidate for governor; and Tania Kappner, an Oakland Unified School District teacher. 

Below are background information for each candidate and their campaign goals. The NEA declined to comment about the upcoming election, and the candidates did not reply to interview requests from 91ɬ��.

Princess Moss

Moss has been NEA’s vice president since she was elected with Pringle in 2020. She previously served as the union’s secretary-treasurer for six years, after a 21-year teaching . 

She entered the education field teaching music in Louisa County, Virginia, and served in leadership roles for the state teachers union. She was of the 62,000-member Virginia Education Association from 2005 to 2008.

“My vision centers on transforming our union from one that primarily mobilizes to one that continuously organizes — shifting power from centralized leadership to worksite teams, from reactive campaigns to a proactive infrastructure, from professional advocacy to professional authority,” Moss said in a on her website. “It is time for us to create a NEA where every member is an everyday organizer.”

Among her accomplishments as NEA vice president, Moss joining educators on picket lines, improving membership engagement and increasing the number of bargaining units in Virginia.

The NEA says Moss “focuses special attention on increasing the ranks of new educators” and is “an outspoken, sought-after advocate on the topics of racial and social justice in education.” It credits her for the passage of Virginia’s first for public employees in 2019.

“Princess believes in using every available tool — organizing, legal and legislative measures, the ballot box and collective action — to protect the rights of students and educators and protect public education,” the union said in the statement.

Kate Dias

As president of the Connecticut Education Association since 2021, Dias helped overhaul the state’s , increase school funding and repeal federal rules eliminating for educators. The statewide teachers union has roughly 43,000 members.

This year, Senate Republicans over a social media about immigration enforcement in schools. But she has also received endorsements from politicians like Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, who called Dias a “thoughtful, solution-driven leader and a trusted partner in our shared work to strengthen public education,” according to her campaign .

Dias said on her website that as NEA president, she would advocate for a $60,000 starting salary for education support professionals; partner with historically Black colleges and universities to diversify the teacher pipeline; and mobilize NEA members to secure more district funding and block school privatization.

Dias taught high school math for 21 years, according to the Connecticut Education Association. Her most recent position was in a suburb of Hartford at Manchester HIgh School, where she taught geometry and college-level statistics. She was also president of the Manchester Education Association.

“I was in a classroom when COVID hit. Six years ago, I was like many of you, facing, ‘How am I going to teach math online? How do we come back from this?’ ” she said in a recent . “As you make a decision about who is going to be the next president of NEA, think about where we all were during COVID, and what we did and what we experienced. When was the last time each of us was in a classroom? I was in the classroom five years ago. My opponents haven’t been in the classroom for 10, 15, even 20 years. That matters.”

Sean Spiller

Spiller was a science teacher in Kinnelon, New Jersey, before being elected president of the Wayne Education Association in 2007. He eventually moved to Montclair, New Jersey, where he became a councilman and then mayor. He held leadership positions for several years in the New Jersey Education Association, which represents 200,000 members, before he was in 2021.

Controversy has followed Spiller’s journey to his NEA presidential campaign. He was after the union funneled more than $40 million into his race for governor. The state teachers union the $40 million roughly one month before Spiller officially announced his candidacy.

“When it’s one of our own, when it’s an educator, when it’s us, all of a sudden it’s a big story,” Spiller told last summer when questioned about the donation.

At least two New Jersey teachers have since , alleging that member dues were used to support his campaign for governor even though the union said political action committee support was voluntary. During Spiller’s time as Montclair mayor, from 2020 to 2024, he also came under fire for he wasn’t entitled to. 

Spiller said on his that he believes the national teachers union needs to realign its budget to better support state affiliates. 

“By doing so, we strengthen our ability to mobilize our members and connect their work to the broader priorities and power of our union,” he wrote. “The moment we are in demands focus, unity and determination. Guiding our members and our profession through today’s challenges will require a comprehensive effort.”

Tania Kappner

Kappner is listed as an eighth grade English and history teacher on the website of , a virtual academy within the Oakland Unified School District in California. She previously at Oakland Technical High School. In 2019, the , the University of California, Berkeley student newspaper, reported that Kappner was a member of the Oakland Education Association executive board. 

She’s been affiliated with  , a labor caucus that promoted her campaign for a spot on the NEA executive committee last year. An said Kappner is committed to a “mass anti‐fascist, pro‐civil rights, pro‐union movement that defies Trump’s fascist attacks and demands his immediate ouster.” 

Kappner ran against Moss for NEA vice president in 2023. In a from the union’s annual representative assembly meeting that year, Kappner said she fights hard for the rights of members and students.

“I take on the Trump movement by fighting against racism, and for immigrant, LGBTQ and women’s rights,” she said in the program. “I mobilize intransigently to defend public education against privatization and union-busting. I’m running for NEA vice president because NEA must be a leader, not follow the politicians in the fight for public education.”

She also participated in the Oakland Education Association strike in 2023. In a with KBOO Portland, Kappner said she’s always been a longtime union activist and has spent 30 years in Oakland Unified.

NEA made that opposition the focal point of the gathering, joining a protest organized by Florida for All on July 1 and then outside the convention center July 5. Its themes were “Freedom to Learn” and “Teach Truth.”

“As this nation’s largest, most powerful union … we will protect our democracy [and] preserve public education,” said Pringle.

But the union’s commitment to these principles did not extend to its own operations during the convention. It stage-managed every aspect of the proceedings and saw to it that no shadows were cast across its self-image as the progressive defender of democracy.

NEA bills its representative assembly as “the world’s largest democratic, deliberative body.” But just how democratic and deliberative is it?

The delegates spent most of their time at the four-day convention introducing, debating and voting on “new business items.” These are proposals for the national union to take a specific and finite action. They are paid for through NEA’s contingency fund, which totals $3 million.

The NEA annual budget approaches $375 million, which means the delegates are devoting almost all of their attention to less than 1% of the union’s operations.

The delegates do vote on the total budget at the end of the convention, but they cannot add, amend or delete anything from it — only approve it or reject it as is.

Which new business items were approved and which were rejected? Neither the public nor the non-attending members of NEA have any idea. The union put the proposals and actions behind a firewall, and very few individual delegates saw fit to pass along the information.

Education Week — the only media outlet to cover the convention — reported that the delegates , at a cost of more than $580,000. New Business Item 69, which had , passed by 20 votes out of more than 4,500 cast.

New Business Item 53 proposed that NEA instruct local affiliates on how to become “strike-ready.” The delegates voted to refer it to committee, which upset the sponsor of the item, Deb Gesualdo, a delegate from Massachusetts, because she felt it left the decision to act or not in the hands of a few higher-ups, instead of the large representative body.

, she claimed the “NEA board steering committee began to organize against it” and that her item “upset a handful of state presidents who are interested in hoarding information and hoarding power.”

Another delegate also sounded a bit disillusioned. “I sat with some teachers from different states at one point. What did we talk about? Our working conditions, our pay, our workload, student behavior … things that were not talked about during the [representative assembly]. Our [new business items] had little to do with teaching,” .

While the public, the press and most NEA members were in the dark about the proceedings, at least the delegates in attendance could witness them. But even delegates present at the assembly were mostly unaware of what actions NEA officials took just outside the hall.

NEA staffers represented by the Association of Field Service Employees have been working without a contract since June 1. In an attempt to move negotiations along, a group of them showed up at the convention center to hand out leaflets and hold signs.

This didn’t sit well with NEA executives, who, , sent convention center security and a sheriff’s deputy to have them removed from the premises.

The staff union also claims it was prevented from joining the Freedom to Learn rally, and that NEA urged delegates not to interact with the staff union.

“On a day when NEA professed the ‘freedom to learn,’ AFSE members and NEA members were denied their freedom of speech,” .

Its demands include the usual pay increases and benefit improvements, but the association also of increasing members’ workload while shrinking staff and relying on temporary employees, which it calls “an anti-union, exploitative practice.”

The association received strong support from its sister unions of NEA employees, the and the , which has its own gripes with NEA management.

The staff union placed that accuses some NEA leaders of prejudice and racism. “At NEA Headquarters there is a persisting culture of mistreatment and disrespect of our Black staff that has continued to go unchallenged,” the post reads.

There are legitimate concerns about whitewashing history, covering up errors and misdeeds, and promoting only a positive, glowing image. NEA’s own actions during its representative assembly demonstrate the union is not immune from such urges.

Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears most Wednesdays; see the full archive.

, NEA President Becky Pringle urged President Joe Biden to nominate Julie Su, currently deputy secretary, to replace Marty Walsh, who is leaving to become executive director of the National Hockey League’s players union.

It is common for interest groups to support their favorites for cabinet offices and other high-ranking federal positions. But I can find no previous occurrence of NEA publicly endorsing a candidate prior to his or her nomination — not even when one of its own, former NEA President Lily Eskelsen García, in December 2020.

NEA’s change in tactics may have its roots in that time period, when newly elected President Biden was forming his first cabinet. Su was on the short list for labor secretary, but Democrats were divided over several candidates. Walsh was selected because of his union background, his close relationship with Biden and endorsements from the AFL-CIO and the American Federation of Teachers.

Though it is the nation’s largest union, NEA did not back a candidate.

When Su was passed over, it disappointed her supporters, most notably Asian-American advocacy groups. Biden’s cabinet does not contain anyone of Asian-American descent. Being the deputy secretary, Su is an obvious choice this time, and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus is among those .

There are other contenders for the job, . Rep. Nancy Pelosi reportedly wants former New York Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney. Sen. Bernie Sanders likes Sara Nelson, president of the flight attendants union, or former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

NEA’s decision to publicly support Su this time may have to do with cabinet diversity, or the desire to show itself as a driving force in organized labor. But what appeals to the teachers union about Su herself isn’t entirely clear.

In her letter to Biden, Pringle lists among Su’s accomplishments as deputy secretary being a “skilled messenger,” overseeing the workforce “tactfully and with kindness” and traveling across the country “promoting the work of the Department and Administration.”

And while NEA considers teaching experience a prerequisite for being education secretary, it doesn’t hold the same standard for labor secretary. Su is a former civil rights attorney with no union experience.

Almost two-thirds of Pringle’s letter is , letter from Marc Egan, NEA’s director of government relations, to the Senate, urging a yes vote for Su’s confirmation as deputy secretary.

Not that it will matter, but California Republicans are squarely against Su, due to her tenure as the state’s labor secretary. During her watch, California paid out in fraudulent unemployment insurance claims.

NEA may get its wish and see Su installed as labor secretary, but it will take more than any efforts on her part to reverse decades of union decline. Membership losses have continued unabated through both Democratic and Republican presidential administrations. Biden’s will be no exception.

Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears most Wednesdays; see the full archive.