Thank you all for supporting the New Leaders Giving Tuesday Campaign. Your donations support Emily, a high school principal in Baltimore, Maryland.

Emily began her education career with Teach For America in 2003 and taught English for three years at a high school in the area. She was then selected for the Baltimore City Mayoral Fellowship, where she took part in the Baltimore County Public School System’s (BCPSS) SchoolStat team, and went on to join the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) in D.C. Most recently, Emily returned to Baltimore as a staff developer and was responsible for her current high school’s English department as well as school-wide literacy professional development. She also completed the Emerging Leaders Program last year.

One of Emily’s proudest accomplishments is founding a summer SAT program for student-athletes called Brains & Brawn, which addresses the problem of college-caliber athletes that are unable to take advantage of their athletic ability due to poor grades and SAT scores. The 16 participants who completed the program averaged SAT score gains of 70 points with a maximum gain of 200 points, and all 16 gained acceptance to four-year universities.

Emily’s work at the district and state levels led her to believe that the most important position in education is the principal. Her ultimate goal is to prove that low-income schools can become great establishments of learning that foster high student achievement.

Thank you all for supporting the New Leaders Giving Tuesday Campaign. Your donations support Kelly, an elementary and middle school principal in Baltimore, Maryland.

Kelly’s move to Baltimore in 2006 made her see that she had to take her leadership to the next level to serve students in need. While she had always been an ambitious leader, she knew it was time to step up and lead in the Baltimore community.

Prior to moving to Baltimore, Kelly taught 4th grade in Ocean City, New Jersey for five years. Most recently, Kelly served as math education associate and dean of students at an elementary school in Baltimore under the leadership of two other New Leaders. She found a wealth of knowledge and support during this time, and both of her New Leader mentors were able to help her develop her leadership skills as part of the Emerging Leaders Program. She also led a team to almost triple the Kindergarten benchmark scores from the beginning of the school year to the end of the school year.

Kelly is grateful to be a New Leaders. She says: “I feel like I am a part of something huge, and I know that New Leaders will be a part of transformational leadership for years to come.”

Thank you all for taking the steps to support our children’s education in Baltimore, Maryland through Kelly and New Leaders.

Thank you all for supporting the New Leaders Giving Tuesday Campaign. Your donations support Tiffany, a principal in New York City.

Tiffany has always been interested in the work that is done “behind the scenes.” She knew there was a blueprint to running a school effectively, and is now gaining the knowledge on how to do this herself.

Tiffany first discovered her voice and love for helping children while working as a camp counselor, and then as a caseworker for a foster care agency. She entered the education field as a third grade teacher through the New York City Teaching Fellows program in 2001.

During her time in the classroom, Tiffany was particularly proud of her ability to help special education students pass the New York State exams. As a mother of a special-needs child herself, she frequently told her students’ parents that she would teach every one of her classes as if they were the talented and gifted class, and refused to give up on any child’s potential.

Tiffany believes that it is vastly important for everyone to have the same access to education. She says that “we are living in a global society and I feel that all children should have access to a quality education to help them compete in the world. As educators we are obligated to ensure that this work happens.”

Than you for supporting Tiffany and New Leaders!

Thank you all for supporting the New Leaders Giving Tuesday Campaign. Your donations support Kimberly, a Baltimore, Maryland area principal of an elementary and middle school.

The women in Kimberly’s family have paved the way for her to become a school leader — both her mother and sister have been principals and she is eager to continue her family’s commitment to school leadership.

Prior to joining New Leaders, Kimberly served in the Baltimore City Public School System for 17 years, spending four years as an instructional support teacher and literacy coach, and 13 years teaching third and fifth grade. Over the course of her career, Kimberly’s students have made significant gains; during the 2011-2012 school year, her fifth grade students achieved a 20 percent increase on their reading assessments. In recognition of her outstanding results, Kimberly has been named “Teacher of the Year” not once, but twice.

Kimberly applied to New Leaders because of the dynamic learning and mentoring that drives the program, which she believes will help her to achieve her goal of providing an excellent education for her entire community.

Thank you for supporting Kimberly and New Leaders!

Thank you all for supporting the New Leaders Giving Tuesday Campaign. Your donations support Michael, the principal of a Prince George’s County, Maryland elementary school.

Throughout his career, Michael has been a constant advocate for children and the community in Prince George’s County. Even though he has had opportunities to move into roles in higher-paying or less challenging schools, he is committed to giving back to the community where he himself grew up and attended school.

Prior to joining New Leaders, Michael served for six years as an elementary music teacher and technology coordinator at a nearby elementary school in Prince George’s County. He also achieved significant gains with students as coordinator of his school’s Saturday Academy; 88 percent of participating students in third through sixth grade made double-digit gains in both reading and math on quarterly assessments.

By the end of his first year of teaching, Michael knew that his calling was school leadership. He joined New Leaders because he found alignment in his values as a leader and those of the organization, particularly when faced with providing equity for all.

Thank you all for supporting the New Leaders Giving Tuesday Campaign. Your donations support Kimberly, an elementary school principal in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

Over the course of her ten years in education, Kimberly has never taken a summer off – choosing to teach summer enrichment programs and work at summer camps instead. This tireless work ethic is fueled by her personal responsibility to equip the children of Prince George’s County with a high-quality education.

Prior to joining New Leaders, Kimberly served as a fifth grade reading, language arts and social studies teacher at a nearby elementary school. While teaching there, she served as grade level chair, testing coordinator and talented and gifted coordinator, in addition to serving on various teams such as the school-based management team and the positive behavior interventions and support team. With her guidance, Kimberly’s students averaged an 80 to 90 percent pass rate on the Maryland State Assessment.

Kimberly joined the Emerging Leaders Program last year, and made the decision to participate in the Aspiring Principals Program this year, because she knows that strong leadership is “the key to preparing our students to be college and career ready.”

Thank you all for supporting the New Leaders Giving Tuesday Campaign. Your donations support Margaret, a principal at a Chicago area high school.

For the past seven years as a teacher and instructional leader in Chicago Public Schools, Margaret has dedicated herself to changing students’ lives through education. As a student who lived in poverty herself, it was only through the promise and power of education that she was able to achieve her personal and professional goals. Now, she works to ensure that other children living in the margins are able to pursue that same dream and make it their own reality.

Prior to joining New Leaders, Margaret taught language arts and writing workshops at an elementary school in Chicago. During her five years there, she enabled over 95 percent of her students to meet or exceed standards on reading assessments — a 30 percent improvement from prior scores.

Margaret decided to take the leap to become a school leader because she believes that she can have a much greater impact. She is bringing a dedication to excellence and determination to change both academic and personal outcomes for students. She decided to apply to the Aspiring Principals Program because New Leader’s mission, vision and core beliefs spoke to the goals she had been trying to accomplish for her students.

Thank you all for supporting the New Leaders Giving Tuesday Campaign. Your donations support  Sam, a charter school principal in California’s Bay Area.

Sam says that Tatiana Epanchin-Troyan and Emily Murphy are the “two best principals” he has ever had the opportunity to work with during his career. They are also both New Leaders and they are the reason that Sam decided to become a school leader himself.

Sam worked with Tatiana (Cohort 4) and Emily (Cohort 7) as a founding teacher for an academy in Oakland. During his time there, students in Sam’s classroom gained an average of a year and a half in reading progress and more than 80 percent were ranked average or above on the end of year math assessment.

While Sam is proud of the gains in student achievement, he believes that some of his greatest successes with students have not shown up in data. Rather, they have shown up in a change in students’ beliefs that they can accomplish more than they had previously been told or thought. He has heard students who said “I can’t” in the beginning of the year say “I can” by the end. This has given him a genuine sense of accomplishment that these students will continue to seek academic achievement and personal success long after they have left his classroom.

During his three years in Oakland, Sam saw the influence that his principals had on students, staff and families, and he knew that he wanted to have that opportunity as well. He is ready to translate his experience, passion and dedication to building a successful and effective school community the students and families of Oakland deserve.

Thank you all for supporting the New Leaders Giving Tuesday Campaign. Your donations support Justine, an elementary school principal in Chicago, Illinois. Justine has seen a great disparity between the “haves” and “have-nots” and works to provide opportunities and equity to students. As an educator, she views herself as a facilitator to helping students unlock and apply the knowledge and abilities they already possess.

Prior to joining New Leaders, Justine was a literacy teacher for Indianapolis Public Schools, where she served at one of the lowest-achieving elementary schools in the district but was able to increase her third grade students’ literacy pass rate by 35 percentage points. Justine has also served as a district instructional coach at Coleman Alternative Middle School, where she worked directly with teachers and students to help improve literacy skills and instruction.

Justine views her participation in the Aspiring Principals Program as a rare opportunity to learn from the best of the best in educational practice.  She is excited to engage in an experiential learning process through her Residency year and become better equipped to help make greater changes in education.

Thank you all for supporting the New Leaders Giving Tuesday Campaign! Your contributions support Melanie, a principal in New York. With a dual passion for social work and education, Melanie has worked as a counselor in Boston Public Schools and educator in New York City Public Schools, which has given her a unique set of experiences in working with high-need student populations.

Prior to joining New Leaders, Melanie served for four years as a special education instructor in Brooklyn. She entered the education field as a New York City Teaching Fellow and in her first year was able to increase her students’ scores by an average of 25 points in math. As a result, Melanie was ranked in the 93^rd percentile of all first-year teachers in the city. In 2010, she also began training and mentoring other new teachers through various positions with the NYC Teaching Fellows program.

Melanie wants to become a school leader in order to have a greater scope of impact than just the students in a single classroom that she teaches directly. By working as a leader in a high-need school, she hopes to help the students who need it the most and “give back to the communities and cultures that made me who [she is] today.”