'Drag Race' judge Ross Mathews engaged to LI educator

Wellinthon Garcia, the newly announced fiance of TV personality and "RuPaul's Drag Race" judge Ross Mathews, is an educator with deep ties to Long Island.

The 39-year-old director of curriculum and instruction for the Elmont Union Free School District, Garcia was publicly announced as Mathews' intended last week on Drew Barrymore's syndicated daytime talk show.

"About a year ago, I met somebody who just changed my life totally," Mathews, 41, told the host, describing the educator as "hilarious and he's the smartest person I ever met." He said the two started dating in early 2020 "right before the pandemic, and then we had to date through quarantine, making those Zoom dates. And then eventually … being together and making it work."

"You know Beyoncé says 'If you like it then you should've put a ring on it?' " Mathews added. "Well, I did!" he said and held up his ring hand.

Ross also took to Twitter and Instagram to announce his engagement.

Garcia joined the Elmont school district in 2013 as a teacher at the Covert Avenue School (pre-K to 6th grade), and eventually became assistant principal there. In June 2017, under himself and Principal Mary Natoli, the school earned a $3,000 grant to purchase athletic equipment after having raised $16,300 for the American Heart Association in the Teamup4Community's Spring Community Service Challenge.

After Covert Avenue, Garcia became assistant principal at the district's Alden Terrace School in North Valley Stream. Before his work on Long Island, he had been a technology/data coordinator and a K-2 teacher in New York City public schools.

By the mid-2010s, while working for the Elmont School District, Garcia was a doctoral candidate at Hempstead’s Hofstra School of Education.