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A Louisa County music teacher who began as a VEA student member now leads the nation’s largest labor union, becoming the second VEA president in history to rise to the NEA presidency

RICHMOND, Va. The Virginia Education Association today celebrated the election of Princess R. Moss as president of the National Education Association, the three-million-member union that represents educators across the country. Delegates to the NEA Representative Assembly elected Moss, a music teacher who spent her career in Louisa County classrooms and built her leadership through the ranks of the VEA.

Moss becomes only the second VEA president ever to lead NEA, following Mary Hatwood Futrell, who served as NEA president from 1983 to 1989. For Virginia educators, her election is both a point of enormous pride and a reminder of how far a single member can carry the values of this union.

Her story is a VEA story from the beginning. Moss joined the Association as a student member while studying music education at the University of Mary Washington, then spent 21 years teaching music in Louisa County public schools. She was elected VEA vice president, then served two terms as VEA president from 2005 to 2008, growing the Association’s membership and winning greater public investment in Virginia’s schools. From there she carried Virginia’s voice to the national stage: two terms on the NEA Executive Committee, six years as NEA secretary-treasurer beginning in 2014, and election as NEA vice president in 2020. She earned her master’s degree in elementary and secondary administration and supervision from the University of Virginia.

The daughter of two school bus drivers, Moss has never lost sight of the people who keep schools running. She has been a consistent, outspoken advocate for education support professionals, for new educators entering the profession, and for the students and communities too often left behind.

“I am a proud product of Virginia’s public schools and of this Association,” said Moss. “I joined VEA as a student member, I learned to lead in Virginia classrooms and union halls, and everything I bring to this office, I bring because Virginia educators believed in me first. To every member who has ever organized, marched, or simply shown up for a child, this moment belongs to you. We are moving our union from resistance to renaissance, and we will do it together, with truth, with love, and with an unshakable belief in every student and every educator.”

“Princess is one of us, and she always has been,” said VEA President Carol Bauer. “She started as a student member of this Association, taught music to Virginia kids for more than two decades, and never once forgot where she came from or who she was fighting for. We have watched her carry our values to the national stage for years. Now she carries them all the way to the top. Every educator in the Commonwealth should feel this win in their bones, because it belongs to all of us. We are proud, we are ready, and we are going to organize right alongside her.”

VEA Vice President Dr. Jessica M. Jones said Moss’s path speaks directly to the members she will now lead.

“Princess understands this union from the ground up, because she lived it,” Jones said. “The daughter of two school bus drivers. A classroom teacher. A local leader. A state president. Every educator and every education support professional in this country now has a national president who knows their work because she has done it herself. Her election tells every young educator in Virginia that there is no ceiling on what we can build when we stand together.”

As NEA president, Moss inherits leadership of the country’s largest union at a moment of real consequence for public education, from the fight for fair pay and respect for the profession to the defense of every student’s right to a great public school. Virginia educators have seen her meet hard moments before, and they know the kind of leader she is.

The Virginia Education Association looks forward to working with President Moss and the full NEA leadership team on behalf of students, educators, and public schools in Virginia and across the nation.