Evergreen teachers achieve national board certification

National Board for Professional Teaching Standards: boardcertifiedteachers.org

From the first moments of Kimberleigh Anderson’s beginning creative movement class at Heritage High School, the students jumped, slid and danced. Facing a wall of mirrors, they moved together as Anderson counted and clapped out the beat.

“One, two, three and four, five, six! And jump!” she shouted.

Head thrown back and arms extended, Anderson danced with her students as she led them through a series of measured movements. Nearing the end of the dance, they moved slowly toward her.

“Bring it in slow. Go down — splat!” she said.

In unison, they fell to the floor.

“You’re amazing!” Anderson said, clapping. “Let’s take it from the top!”

A few years ago, Anderson started each class with students sitting on the floor while she laid out the class agenda. But going through the rigors of becoming a National Board Certified Teacher helped her focus intensely on her teaching, and she found a better way to engage students from the start.

“Now I have them moving right away and I talk while they’re dancing,” she said.

Anderson attained board certification in 2013. It’s a thorough process that takes teachers 200 to 400 hours of looking closely at how they teach and how they can improve.

Washington has the nation’s largest group of new National Board Certified Teachers, according to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Last year, 946 Washington teachers achieved their certification. In all, 8,285 Washington teachers are board certified. That’s still a minority of Washington teachers, but it’s enough to rank the state fourth in the nation for the total number of board-certified teachers.

Anderson’s district, Evergreen Public Schools, has 46 new board-certified teachers, nearly twice as many as all other county districts combined.

Collaboration

Evergreen’s numbers reflect the success of a cohort process to guide teachers through the process, said Mary Thompson, a former Heritage High teacher who now heads up the district’s National Board Certified Teacher program, incorporating collaboration in groups, called cohorts.

Teachers meet monthly to go over their board certification work. They read each other’s papers, discuss ideas and determine how each teacher can improve in the classroom.

National board certification is not an easy process, Thompson said. Teachers spend about four to six hours per week just writing.

“The district made a conscientious decision to go with cohorts because when teachers do it on their own, the success rate is very low, about 36 percent,” said Thompson. “We know that when people can collaborate, our success rate is in the high 70 or low 80 percent.”

“It’s a lot to navigate through,” said Anderson, the dance teacher, pulling a thick binder from above her desk. It contains her written certification work and the guidelines.

Why do it?

The certification complements, but does not replace, a teacher’s state license. The process promotes teacher leadership and builds more-effective teachers. That is translated into the classroom, according to Randy Dorn, state superintendent of public instruction.

But a big incentive is that teachers who pass receive a generous bonus. In 2007, the state Legislature passed a bill that awards a $5,000 bonus to each board-certified teacher. Teachers can receive up to an additional $5,000 if they teach in “challenging” schools, which are defined as having a certain percentage of students qualify for free and reduced-price lunch.

Teachers have to pay to go through the certification. Under the old system, they paid $2,500. Now teachers pay $450 per component for national boards. Evergreen teachers who participate in a cohort also pay a cohort fee that’s less than $300.

District teachers can use their professional development fund of about $1,500 to help pay their fees, Thompson said. Additionally, the state offers a no-interest loan to teachers. After they pass their boards and receive their bonus, they pay back the state.

Beginning this year, the certification process is changing and being rolled out into a multiyear process, Thompson said. The new Component One is a test taken at a Portland testing center. Component Two focuses on assessment and looking at student work and student growth. Two more components will be rolled out by October 2016.

This year, the district has only 18 teachers going through the cohorts. Not every teacher chooses to participate in a cohort, Thompson said.

In the past, most teachers completed the process in one school year, but now they can spread the work over two or three years, she said.

“I think it’s foolish to do it in one year,” Thompson said. “It was stressful. Kind of like getting a master’s degree condensed into one year while you’re working. However, unlike my master’s program, this allowed me to focus on my classroom. On my teaching practices.”

“It’s a love-hate relationship,” Anderson said of the board-certification process. “But it’s the best thing I’ve done in my teaching career to be reflective in my teaching.”