Five Mercer Island School District teachers have achieved National Board Certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. There are now 48 National Board Certified teachers in the District.
The teachers and their certifications are:
- Jayne Dash, Counseling, Islander Middle School
- Brian Hampsch, Science, Mercer Island High School
- Dry Klein, Counseling, Islander Middle School
- Carissa Murphy, Music, Lakeridge Elementary
- Nina Nierman — Northwood Elementary Personalized Learning Program
They were honored at the May 10 School Board meeting along with Peggy Aguilar, Spanish teacher at MIHS, who has helped to mentor the new NBCTs.
These teachers join a growing community of Board-certified teachers, now more than 118,000 strong across all 50 states.
This year’s new Board-certified teachers are the first to certify under the redesigned assessment, developed to be more flexible and accessible for teachers.
Certification consists of four components: An assessment of the teacher’s content knowledge; a portfolio showing work students have done and the teacher’s feedback to the student; two videos of the teacher in the classroom, showing lessons taught and the interaction with and among students; and a portfolio of “reflective” work: what the teacher does outside the classroom that translates in the classroom.
The last three components are assessed by a national panel of peers.
Numbers released by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) show that Washington has the most new National Board Certified teachers (NBCTs) of any state (1,434). The total number of 10,135 NBCTs in Washington is third in the country overall.
