Tuesday event to honor 66 teachers receiving highest certification for education professionals.
NBCT celebration and ceremony: 5-8 p.m., Tuesday, April 24
Chicago Cultural Center/Preston Bradley Hall, 8 E. Washington St., Chicago
CHICAGO—The Chicago Teachers Union will join officials from Chicago Public Schools to celebrate the achievement of 66 new National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) and another 88 Board-certified teachers who successfully renewed their certification this year. Each of these accomplished educators earned or maintained the profession’s highest mark of achievement through a rigorous, performance-based, peer-review process, demonstrating their proven impact on student learning and achievement.
Over the last two decades, since the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards began certification, CPS/CTU has produced more than 2,200 NBCTs nationally. The CTU and CPS partner in the district’s National Board professional development and support program, Nurturing Teacher Leadership (NTL), with funding from CPS and administration and programming provided through the Chicago Teachers Union Foundation’s Quest Center, an approach codified in the CTU’s collective bargaining agreement with CPS. NTL, which also works in partnership with local universities to provide graduate credit and a track toward a Master’s degree, has a 94% achievement rate – twice the national average – and today 73% of CPS schools now have NBCTs serving on staff.
NBCTs serve in 385 schools in Chicago, and count among their ranks CTU President Karen Lewis, President of the CTU, is an NBCT. Speakers at Tuesday’s celebration will include Lewis; CPS CEO Janice Jackson ; Michele Accardi, Director of Policy and Partnerships for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and a National Board Certified Teacher; Mary Cathryn Ricker, Executive Vice President, American Federation of Teachers and a National Board Certified Teacher; Dan Montgomery, President of the Illinois Federation of Teachers and a former member of the board of directors of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards; Michael Herring, Executive Director of Educator Effectiveness for Chicago Public Schools; Lynn Cherkasky-Davis, Director of Teacher Leadership for the CTU Foundation Quest Center, which anchors NBCT programming, and the CTU/CPS National Board Certification Manager; CPS teacher Paula Wyatt, NBCT class of 2017; CPS teacher Eurydice Bevly, NBCT class of 2017; and CPS teacher Eduardo Amezqueta-Martinez, NBCT class of 2017.
