1. May 30, 2015
This letter is to certify that Veronica Talton of Ranson Middle School was a participant
in the Emerging Leaders Program (ELP) with New Leaders from June 2014– May 2015.
New Leaders is a national nonprofit that recruits, trains, and supports transformational
school leaders who drive great results for students. We also collaborate with partner
school systems to foster the conditions that enable strong leaders to succeed. The
Emerging Leaders Program teaches participants powerful mind and skillsets to begin
driving achievement gains in their schools. If candidates live in one of our program
cities, the Emerging Leaders Program is the primary pathway into the Aspiring Principals
Program.
While in our program, participant responsibilities included:
 Induction & Intensive
 Leadership Development Activities
 Virtual Learning
 In-Person Training Sessions
 School-based Projects
 Feedback & Assessments
 Reading Assignments
 Performance Conversations and a Final Presentation
The program was divided into the following strands:
 Adult leadership: motivating a team to believe in college success for all students
and in the team’s ability to realize this goal, building trusting relationships, giving
constructive feedback, and leading effective meetings;
 Instructional leadership: setting the expectation that college success is the
target, guiding teams through a full data analysis cycle as well as observing and
coaching teachers to improve instruction;
 Culture leadership: building a learning orientation among team members and
students who are focused on hard work and personal responsibility for their own
development; and
 Personal leadership: developing an individual’s capacity to receive feedback and
self-reflect to continuously improve.

2. There was a particular focus on the following content: Leading Effective Teams, Intro to
Data Driven Instruction, Item-Level Analysis and Difficult Conversations on Student
Efficacy, Leading Action-Planning to Correct Instruction and Support Student Efficacy,
Monitoring Corrective Instruction and a Culture of Efficacy, and Defining, Observing, and
Coaching Toward Rigor.
In total, the participant completed 75 hours of service. For further verification, please
feel free to contact Krista Lewis-Johnson (klewis-johnson@newleaders.org) or Paul
Barnhardt (pbarnhardt@newleaders.org).
Sincerely,
Millard House
Executive Director