Are you considering National Board Certification?
National Board Certification was designed to develop, retain and recognize accomplished teachers and generate ongoing improvement in schools nationwide. It is the most respected professional certification available in K-12 education.
If you need more information on the process, visit the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards website and click on the Get Certified box.
Scroll down to the Candidate Center section and look for First-time and Returning Candidate Resources. Click on the red Learn More link to access a virtual library of resources and documents.
Be sure to review the Guides and FAQs section, including the Guide to National Board Certification and Choosing the Right Certificate.
Toward the bottom of the page, you'll find Standards and Instructions for First-time and Returning Candidates. Under the Discipline drop-down menu, choose your certificate area and/or developmental age range. Once you’ve selected your areas, the component directions and specific standards will appear.
Read over the standards and look at the component requirements carefully to understand what you will have to do.
“The process is really scary at first, because just reading everything and I wasn’t sure when I read everything if, you just kind of doubt yourself, like if you’re good enough," said Kathleen Trifonovitch, a Maunawili Elementary fifth-grade teacher who received her certification in January. “It pretty much tested my knowledge and skills in all aspects. You can’t fake it. You have to truly be effective, collect the data and show your instructional knowledge, and you have to have to really want and believe that the teacher is the most important thing for the students, and that you’re willing to do all of that to make sure they all have equity, they all learn, and they all make gains.”
Related Story: Hawaii teachers share their journey to National Board Certification
Click here to watch our video on YouTube.
For support, consider joining our local NBPTS network affiliate: HSTA NBCTs—a collaborative network of NBCTs, candidates and other professionals that connects participants with teacher leadership opportunities and promotes the sharing of ideas and expertise within our network, HSTA and HTSB.
The application can be found here.
If you have a Facebook account, like HSTA NBCTs' Facebook page for updates.
Candidate support for 2019 begins in the summer with NEA National Board Jump Start workshops (Oahu: June 10-13, Kauai: June 10-12, Maui: June 17-20, Hawaii and Molokai: TBD).
“NEA Jump Start provides teachers the opportunity to immerse themselves in the National Board process during the summer, giving them the time to focus on understanding and planning their National Board journey without their daily classroom responsibilities,” said Tracey Idica, HSTA NBCTs Network Coordinator.
These non-credit comprehensive seminars are designed to provide National Board candidates important information about the certification process, time to examine component and Assessment Center requirements, the opportunity to plan how to meet requirements, and time to collaborate, gather resources and information needed to pursue certification in a supportive and constructive environment.
"(Jump Start) kind of helped me understand the whole process and kind of break it down and figure out what I needed to do, and then they had a support group along the way that I would go to and meet with my mentor teacher to talk about it, so that was helpful," said Lisa Espiritu, a Nimitz Elementary fifth-grade teacher who received her certification in January. "It is a lot of work and so it’s easy to just be like, 'Ugh, maybe I don’t want to, wait, I don’t want to do this right now,' or 'I don’t know if I can do this right now,' so having other people that are going through it, you can just sit and talk with them and the people that have already gone through it, just sort of bounce ideas off of them. That was crucial I think in being able to do it."
Click here to view the Jump Start workshop schedule and get more information.
Candidate support cohorts will begin in September. Check your Member Matters weekly email newsletter for updates!
For more information on the National Board Certification process or HSTA NBCTs, email hsta.nbcts@gmail.com.
Waimea Middle School teachers Shelby Loo and Naui Murphy were recognized with their National Board Certifications this week! From left: Reps. David Tarnas and Dee Morikawa, Loo, Murphy, and House Speaker Scott Saiki.