The five National Board Fellows visited our Arlington offices in mid-February to wrap up their Fellowship and to share highlights of their “passion projects.”
Pictured above, from left to right: National Board Fellows Amy Steger, Rodrigo Rodriguez-Tovar, Jaime Festa-Daigle, Melissa Collins, and Melissa Chandler.
Amy Steger, NBCT from Eden, NY focused her work on two main areas. Primarily, she helped pre-service teachers become more aware of National Board certification. Collaborating with teachers from across the country, Amy connected with local universities and schools of education, built material and sought to assure that future educators had early insight into the value of becoming National Board certified. Along with this, Amy created a virtual space for discourse around the Five Core Propositions via a series of Twitter chats.
Jaime Festa-Daigle, NBCT connected with and supported informal networks of National Board Certified Teachers. She provided needed resources on local/state policy, advocacy, candidate support and more.
Melissa Chandler, NBCT developed support for National Board among school and district leaders through communication, education and integration of the Five Core Propositions. She surveyed school leaders, reviewed resources, developed conference proposals, created presentations and built a toolkit.
Rodrigo Rodriguez-Tovar, NBCT built a virtual candidate support program. In this work, he provided individual guidance, assistance and recognition to teachers pursuing National Board certification. Taking advantage of an electronic platform, he established a self-paced learning course that will be available to candidates in the near future.
Melissa Collins, NBCT designed a strategic plan to increase the number of minority teachers pursuing and achieving National Board certification. She collaborated with third-party groups including Black Educators Rock and created a video highlighting why students need role models who are successful teachers of color.