National Board Certification
BSF supports teachers to pursue their National Board Certification, a benchmark for teaching excellence. Since 2003, BSF has provided over $750,000 to support National Board certification in the Bellevue School District. This funding helped teachers cover the cost of certification and provided National Board-certified facilitators to mentor applicants through the process. As a result, over 265 teachers in our public schools are National Board-certified. Last year, half of the new National Board-certified teachers were in Bellevue’s schools with high poverty.
Multiple studies have shown that the National Board Certification process makes a measurable impact on student learning, engagement and achievement, especially for struggling students. Data from Bellevue, as well as national sources, helped influence the Washington State legislature to provide bonus pay for National Board-certified teachers. Additional legislation, passed by the state in 2009, now provides no-interest loans to help cover certification fees. We are proud to be a part of this transformational program in Washington State that will continue to yield great benefit to children and youth across the state.
BSF continues to provide support to Bellevue teachers seeking National Board certification. In order to qualify for a state loan for fees, teachers need to enroll in a state-approved facilitator program. This fiscal year, BSF is providing tuition assistance to teachers for this purpose.
BSF congratulates Bellevue's newest National Board Certified Teachers! On December 16, 2009, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) announced the successful candidates. Click here for the list of 65 new NBCTs in Bellevue schools. These teachers are from the 2008-09 cohort supported by BSF.
"National Board Certification causes teachers to be very intentional about what they do. NBCTs frame each lesson around the specific group of students they teach. Before beginning a lesson, NBCTs determine what their students can already do, what they need to learn, what instructional strategies will be used to reach all learners, what students will do to show they have met the objective, and what will be taught next to students who mastered the objective. NBCTs make plans to work individually with students who don't meet the objective during the initial lesson and re-teach using a wide range of instructional strategies and accommodations to make sure all students succeed. By being intentional about what they teach, NBCTs are able to help diverse groups of students meet objectives and achieve academic success.” – Melissa Slater, National Board Certified Teacher
Start-up Grants
Small grants of $200 are provided to new teachers in the Bellevue School District to help them set up their classrooms and provide an engaging learning environment for their students.