Twenty-four Montgomery County Public Schools teachers are among the 64 Maryland teachers who have achieved certification by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) this year. This brings the total of nationally certified teachers in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) to 40.

Cold Spring Elementary School in Potomac has the distinction of having six teachers earn NBPTS certification this year. Montgomery Blair High School has three 2001 nationally certified teachers.

National Board Certification was created so that teachers, like professionals in other fields, can achieve distinction by demonstrating through a demanding performance assessment that they meet high and rigorous standards for what accomplished teachers should know and be able to do.

Teachers achieve national certification after completing a rigorous yearlong series of assessments that include teaching portfolios, student work samples, videotapes, and rigorous analyses of their classroom teaching and student learning. Candidates also complete a series of written exercises that probe the depth of their subject-matter knowledge and their understanding of how to teach those subjects to their students.

Nationally certified MCPS teachers receive an additional $2,000 in salary each year for a period of 10 years. The state matches the local salary incentive with a stipend of up to $2,000 per year.

A total of 165 teachers in Maryland and more than 16,000 nationwide have attained NBPTS certification since the program’s inception in 1995.

The 24 MCPS teachers and their schools are:

John T. Baker Middle School: Linda Gross
Montgomery Blair High School: Jeffrey Newby, Carole Tomayko, David Swaney
James Hubert Blake High School: Anne Taylor
Brooke Grove Elementary School: Ann Titherington
Rachel Carson Elementary School: Nancy Blumenschein, Katherine O’Boyle
Cedar Grove Elementary School: Terrie Ward
Cold Spring Elementary School: Anne Gardner Cain, Christine Frank, Diane Marie Kuykendall, Kathleen Reidy Pappano, Karen Bryan Stiefel, Terry Testa
Georgian Forest Elementary School: Elinor Ingram Boyce
Kingsview Middle School: Heidi Walker
Luxmanor Elementary School: John Pieter Graham
Spark Matsunaga Elementary School: Jacqueline Coan McCloskey
Meadow Hall Elementary School: Margaret Ann McLain
Richard Montgomery High School: Nancy Shay
North Bethesda Middle School: R. Shaun Western
Rosemont Elementary School: Sharon Marie Dreyfus-Illanes
Sherwood High School: Elizabeth Harp

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards was created in 1987. It is an independent, nonprofit organization governed by a 63-member board of directors, a majority of whom are classroom teachers.







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