New Mexico teacher Laura Escalanti succumbs to Covid-19

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With great sadness we report that yet another beloved educator has been lost to Covid-19. Laura Escalanti, a teacher at Pojoaque Valley Middle School in Santa Fe, New Mexico, succumbed to the disease on November 21, 2020. (Photo credit: Santa Fe New Mexican)

With great sadness we report that yet another beloved educator has been lost to Covid-19. Laura Escalanti, a teacher at Pojoaque Valley Middle School in Santa Fe, New Mexico, succumbed to the disease on Nov. 21, 2020. She was 69 years old.

For more than 20 years, Laura instructed courses in Spanish and the Tewa language at the middle school. In addition, she served on the planning team for Tewa Women United’s A’Gin Project.

The loss of this dedicated Native American educator has been keenly felt in the community, and in her Pueblo of San Ildefonso. “We lost a treasure,” remarked Joe Talachy, Governor of the Pojoaque Pueblo. “People like her are invaluable. It’s hard to find people with that kind of ambition, that kind of charisma and character that really gets through to our youth,” he declared.

As a young girl, Laura attended St. Catherine Indian School, where she graduated in 1968. She enrolled at the College of Santa Fe, but dropped out when she was a senior to get married. With her new husband, Laura moved to the Mescalero Apache Reservation, where she lived for 27 years. In 1995 she obtained a divorce and returned to her home town of Santa Fe.

When she returned to Santa Fe, Laura earned her Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and her Master’s degree in Multilingual/Multicultural Education. She accepted her first teaching position at her alma mater, St. Catherine Indian School, where she worked until 1998. The next year she relocated to Pojoaque Valley Middle School. Later Laura earned a second Master’s degree in Education Administration from New Mexico State University.

To learn more about this Chalkboard Champion, see this article published in the Santa Fe New Mexican.

Educator Laura Escalanti, pictured in the back row, fourth from the left, with students from her Tewa Women United’s A’Gin Project. (Photo credit: Tewa Women United)