Valerie Kie

Valerie Kie is from the Pueblo of Laguna located in New Mexico. She has worked in education for two decades. Thirteen of those years were spent in the classroom, where she taught upper elementary and middle school students.Valerie’s experience as a first-generation college graduate motivated her to pursue a career in teaching, particularly in communities serving Indigenous children. She taught in Albuquerque Public Schools and at the Native American Community Academy (NACA), a charter school aiming to provide a holistic model of education to better meet the needs of Native American students.

Valerie is an advocate for Indigenous Education in her tribal community and beyond. She served as the President of the Laguna Department of Education School Board and was appointed to serve on her Pueblo’s Education Priority Team to develop a strategic plan for education. She was a project coordinator for the Laguna Keres Language Revitalization Initiative which launched a web-based tool for tribal members to access language media. This involved bringing community members together, across generations, to develop media in a culturally sensitive, yet relevant way. Valerie is also an experienced curriculum writer and advisor on multiple curriculum projects that aim to bring an Indigenous lens to the content areas of Social Studies and ELA.

Currently, Valerie is the Senior Director of Education and Transformation at the NACA Inspired Schools Network, which is a non-profit organization helping Indigenous communities articulate, realize and sustain their own definition of education.

Valerie lives in Albuquerque, NM with her husband and son. Of the many hats she wears, Valerie is most proud to wear the hat of “hockey mom and lacrosse mom” to her son.