Former Rockville Centre teacher who established ESL program dies at 88

Alma Santana Galati

Alma Santana Galati has not taught at Rockville Centre schools in more than two decades, yet her impact on them is still felt to this day. She helped implement and design the English as a Second Language Program there in 1966 — one of the first on Long Island — and went on to teach for 32 years.

Galati, of Baldwin, died on Jan. 31, at age 88, of complications of Covid-19 and a stroke, but made her mark on the Rockville Centre School District during her life.

A former colleague, Nancy Gabel, described Galati as a team player who had a strong sense of humor and displayed tremendous patience with her students. The two worked together for a handful of years in the 1990s, when they co-taught a special- education kindergarten class at Francis F. Wilson Elementary School.

“We had a lot of fun, and she loved the kids,” Gabel recalled. “She was an amazing teacher, and had a lot of patience with the regular population, as well as the special-education population.”

Gabel, who is now the liaison for the school district’s retired teachers, added that when non-English-speaking parents came to school, Galati was the one who communicated with them and helped them feel welcome because she was fluent in Spanish.

“She was always an asset at Wilson school,” Gabel said, “and well-loved, admired and respected by everybody.”

Galati’s daughter, Susan Galati, noted that her mother’s Mass card at Towers Funeral Home in Oceanside started with the saying, “To laugh often and much,” and said that it was the “perfect description” of the joy with which her mother lived life.

Galati was born in Manhattan on Aug. 24, 1933, the daughter of Isolina and Antonio Santana. She spent the first 12 years of her life living in upper Manhattan and in the Washington Heights section of the Bronx.  Her mother passed on her love of film to Alma and her older sister, Anna, and they spent most weekends at the local theater watching everything that came their way.

Her father was a Navy engineer and designer at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. In the summer of 1946, the family moved to Long Beach, having dreamed of moving out of the city. Her parents and her sister loved the beach, but on July 7 of that year, Anna and a friend got caught in a riptide while swimming and were swept out. The friend was saved, but Anna drowned, a loss that Alma felt for the rest of her life.

At Long Beach High School, Galati was the lead drum majorette, known for her flaming baton, and became interested in education and teaching. Graduating in 1951, she went on to Cortland State Teachers College, where she earned a degree in early childhood education in 1955. She taught in the Valley Stream school district for two years before marrying Philip Galati, from Rockville Centre, whom she had met at Cortland.  Then she took some time off to start a family.

Galati returned to teaching in the Rockville Centre School District as the first hire for the new English as a Second Language Program in 1966. Over the next 32 years, she taught ESL in grades one through six and also taught kindergarten. She also worked with Superintendent Dr. William J. Leary on implementing the desegregation of the Rockville Centre district.

She taught at Watson and Wilson schools and the middle school, but her main base was Riverside School from the 1970s through the 1990s. According to those who knew her, if anyone defined the term teacher/educator, Galati did. She was a dynamic educator, her friends said, and she once said that a large part of her job was acting, and getting her kids inspired.

Her Spanish heritage and fluency in the language allowed her to translate for new students who did not speak English as well as their parents. She would spend her own money to help kids pay for school supplies or to help cover the cost of school trips their parents couldn’t afford. That wasn’t easy for a single mother of two after Galati divorced in the early 1970s.

She also took an interest in supporting the Hispanic community in RVC by getting involved in the Hispanic Brotherhood and working in any capacity — with students and families — asked of her by the head of the organization, Margarita Grasing, a valued friend. Galati and her father are honored annually by the Brotherhood at its annual Scholarship Dinner, with the presentation of a scholarship that Galati and former State Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg were instrumental in funding in her father’s name.

Galati loved teaching and mentoring, but had to retire in 1998. Whenever a former student came up to her on the street in town or sought her out to update her on their lives, she would come home beaming, her children said, reveling in their accomplishments — a testament to how deeply she cared for her students.

She also never stopped learning, or trying to. It took a while, but she got her master’s in education from Hofstra University in 1989, at age 55.

After her retirement, Galati did some traveling, but in her early 70s she began suffering from dementia. She fought it with everything she had, her family said — as she had when she developed breast cancer and needed a radical mastectomy at age 42. She slowly declined over the course of 15 years or so, but remained positive and cheerful.

Even more recently, when she lost her mobility and became homebound, her humor remained intact, as did her love of film. Turner Classic movies kept her entertained until the end. Her family’s only wish was that she could have done more traveling, especially to Spain and the other European countries of her heritage.

Galati is survived by a daughter, Susan Galati, a son, Paul Galati, and a grandson, Charles, a freshman at SUNY Cortland. She is also survived by the two other daughters of her heart, Patricia Willis Storer (Don, Jessica and Cait) and Mildred Willis Berti (Raymond).

A celebration of her life — a party with revelry, food and fun, as she wished for — will take place at a later date. Her family asks that to honor her memory, donations be made to Alzheimer’s or breast cancer research, and that any of Galati’s former students who would like to share stories or memories of her send them to suegchfc@gmail.com, for inclusion in a remembrance book.