PRESS
RELEASE
310.450.8338, ext. 346 22
JAN 2009
SMMUSD Recognizes National Board Certified Teachers
At its January 15th meeting, the Board of Education recognized the accomplishments of the district’s four newly certified National Board teachers.
The teachers who have earned this certification are Sarah Frederick from Roosevelt
Elementary School, who has been teaching for eleven years; Elizabeth Maccani at Webster Elementary School, who has been
teaching for six years; Constanza Murcia from Edison
Language Academy, who has been teaching for fourteen years; Marybeth Reardon from Santa
Monica High School, who has been teaching for seven years.
Though support for this process varies nationally, SMMUSD
offers support to its candidates by reimbursing them for all application fees,
providing one-on-one support from current NBCTs,
providing sub days while working on the process, and a monetary reimbursement for
supplies when they complete the process. When they achieve certification, the
district offers a stipend for the ten years teachers are certified in return
for service hours in the area of Professional Development for colleagues.
Currently, the district has fifty-two National Board
Certified Teachers, six of whom are now administrators.
Dr. Samarge-Powell, Coordinator of Teacher Support
in SMMUSD’s Human Resources department, introduced
the newly certified teachers at the board meeting, and explained the history
and process of National Board Certification.
The National Boards for the Professional Teaching Standards
is an independent, non-profit, nonpartisan and non-governmental organization
governed by a board of directors, with the majority of its members being
classroom teachers.
The NBPTS was created in 1987 in response to the 1983
President’s Commission on Excellence in Education report. The report, in
addition to the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy’s Task force on
Teaching as a profession report led to the development of the National Boards.
National Board Certification is a symbol of professional
teaching excellence. It was created so that teachers, like professionals in
other fields, can achieve distinction by demonstrating through a demanding
performance assessment that they meet high and rigorous standards for what
accomplished teachers should know and be able to do.
Teachers must demonstrate their knowledge and skills through a series of performance-based assessments that include student work samples, videotapes and rigorous analysis of their classroom teaching and student learning. Written exercises probe the depth of their subject-matter knowledge and their understanding of how to teach those subjects to their students.
Teachers who have earned this certification say that they
are strengthened in their practice and the beneficiaries of their improvement
are the students in their classrooms.
Currently, SMMUSD has candidates from across the district
pursuing National Board Certification. The teachers range from elementary to
high school and their years of teaching experience vary. They will complete
their process this June and will find out of they have certified from the
National Boards in December.
In
“As exciting as that sounds,” Samarge-Powell
concluded during her presentation to the board on January 15th, “just
over 1% of
####
SANTA
MONICA-MALIBU UNIFIED
ph:
310.450.8338; fax: 310.581.1138
www.smmusd.org