Angela Maestri Jaggar, an educator, philanthropist and community leader whose decades of work shaped literacy programs, strengthened nonprofits and inspired generations of students, died Sept. 1 in Manhasset. She was 85.
Jaggar, a longtime Port Washington resident, devoted her career to education and public service, beginning as an elementary school teacher in Plainview before spending more than 30 years on the faculty of New York University, where she became an authority on children’s language and literacy development.
“She was just an incredible force in our community,” said Mindy Germain, vice president of Residents Forward, a Port Washington-based nonprofit that Jaggar supported for years. “I feel so honored and blessed that I was able to get just a small piece of her, because I know so many had similar experiences.”
Born June 14, 1940, in the Bronx to Joseph and Louise Maestri, Jaggar graduated magna cum laude from Adelphi University and went on to earn a master’s degree and Ph.D. from NYU.
She co-founded the university’s Reading Recovery Project and later led national organizations, serving as president of the National Conference on Research in Language and Literacy. During this time she also wrote a book, “Observing the Language Learner.”
But Jaggar’s influence extended well beyond the classroom.
With her husband of 51 years, Scott, she created the Scott and Angela Jaggar Foundation to support education, the arts and social services.
Locally she served as president of Landmark on Main Street, where she launched the “Conversations on Main Street” lecture series, and she sat on boards for Adelphi University, the Family and Children’s Association, and multiple literacy and childcare groups.
Germain said working with Jaggar offered rare opportunities for growth, both personally and for her organization, as their collaboration led to the development of a stronger, more innovative curriculum.
Germain said Jaggar challenged her organization to think bigger about how environmental education connected to students’ lives. That push led to projects such as “Every Drop Counts,” a student-designed exhibit on water conservation that still stands along Manhasset Bay.
“We’d meet with her and students at a local pizza parlor, and she would just throw out these questions — How does it connect to science? How do kids emotionally engage with it?” Germain said. “It was intimidating and inspiring all at once.”
Jaggar also helped guide Residents Forward’s first Youth Climate Summit, urging organizers to bring in students with diverse talents.
“She expanded the base by saying, let’s look at rap, poetry, op-eds, the arts, as ways to communicate about climate change,” Germain said. “She thought of things multidimensionally.”
Jaggar’s commitment to service was recognized nationally. In 2011, she received the Distinguished Alumna Award from NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
Outside her professional life, she was an avid golfer and tennis player, a passionate patron of opera and symphony, and a world traveler with a special love of France and Italy.
“In every interaction, she challenged you to rise higher, and when you did, she had this smile that made you feel like you’d really created something bigger and better than you imagined,” Germain said. “That’s what I’ll miss most.”
She is survived by her brother, George Maestri; nieces Kristen, Nicole and Lisa; Scott’s niece and nephews in Texas — Kathy, John, Thomas and Michael — along with many close friends, including Jann Scanlon, and her partner, Josephine De Vincenzi.
A graveside service will be held at 11 a.m. Sept. 12 at Nassau Knoll Cemetery in Port Washington. A celebration of her life is planned for June 14, 2026, on what would have been her 86th birthday.
