Natalie Valencia

Natalie Valencia is a veteran educator and equity-driven school leader with more than 19 years of experience serving students and families in underserved communities. A bilingual educational leader, Valencia has dedicated her career to creating inclusive, high-performing schools where every student feels seen, valued, and empowered to succeed. Her leadership journey includes roles as teacher, instructional coach, assistant principal, principal, and mentor principal, with a consistent focus on improving outcomes for historically marginalized students.

Before becoming a school administrator, Valencia served for eight years at Aspire Lionel Wilson College Preparatory Academy, where she was a Master Science Teacher, Middle School Science Lead, Induction Coach, and Instructional Dean. During her tenure, she developed and implemented successful science curricula, coached teachers, led professional learning, and helped build schoolwide systems that strengthened both instruction and student culture.

This past year, Valencia served as Mentor Principal at Aspire Golden State Preparatory (GSP), coaching Principal Stacy Thomas. Their partnership produced extraordinary results, leading to the highest Mid-Year (MOY) i-Ready growth across Aspire’s 36-school network. Under their leadership, GSP achieved the largest growth trend in mathematics, with students reaching a median 100% progress toward annual typical growth, and the largest growth trend in reading, with students achieving a remarkable median 121% progress toward annual typical growth.

Across both English Language Arts and Mathematics, GSP demonstrated significant upward movement from Beginning-of-Year to Mid-Year assessments. The percentage of students performing three or more grade levels below standard declined, while increasing numbers of students moved into higher performance bands. In mathematics, students furthest from proficiency showed meaningful gains, with more students advancing into one-grade-below and on/near-grade-level categories. Reading outcomes reflected a similar pattern, with growth in students performing at early on-grade-level and above-grade-level benchmarks and reductions in the lowest performance band.  The early acceleration achieved at GSP provides compelling evidence that Valencia’s instructional leadership, coaching expertise, and unwavering commitment to educational equity are driving transformative outcomes for students.