Last Wednesday, Huntsville’s Committee of 100 held their National Board Certified Teacher (NBCT) appreciation breakfast.

The breakfast is held every year to honor the NBCT’s in Huntsville’s school systems, which is the highest level of certification that a K-12 teacher can receive.

In addition to honoring those teachers who are certified, the breakfast also serves to update the Committee’s membership, partners and donors on the Raise Your Hand initiative that aims to deliver a 27% rate of NBCT certified teachers throughout Huntsville’s three public education systems. If achieved, this rate would give Huntsville’s school systems the highest concentration in the country.

Dr. Clarence Sutton, who was recently named superintendent for Huntsville City Schools on June 13th, was one of several speakers at the event. He enters the position with nearly 30 years of experience in public education.

“I’m a National Board Certified teacher at Discovery Middle School,” he began. “So what does it mean to be a national Board certified teacher? It means you reach the highest level of certification that a K-12 teacher can achieve in their career. And for students who are taught by an NBCT, that means they learn faster. It means that they gain an extra grade level instruction over the course of their education. It means kindergartners are 37% more likely to be reading by the end of the school year, and 31% more likely to reach grade level standards.”

The Committee of 100 and the Schools Foundation have partnered to bring 500 new National Board Certified Teachers to Huntsville’s public school systems over the next five years.

logos The initiative was started when the Committee of 100 was searching for a new initiative in the realm of high quality public education. Those involved wanted something that would move the needle and have generational impact. It was suggested that the committee of 100 can provide scholarships for 100 NBC’s one of our three school systems.

So the challenge was accepted and with the help of several individuals and businesses in the city, funding was secured for one hundred teachers. Creative Cities Chair Kris McBride said in her remarks that this wasn’t enough.

“We asked ourselves, is a hundred certified teachers really enough to move the needle? And a new goal was set. We set out to achieve the highest density of NBCT and comparable communities in our nation. So to achieve 27% NBCT in our three systems, we would need to provide scholarships for 500 certified teachers,” McBride explained.

As the challenge to provide 500 scholarships was accepted, the results on the local school systems have been apparent.

All three school districts in Madison County are above average when it comes to NBCT density. Madison County Schools ranked in the top 25 for total number of NBCTs.

Both Madison County and Madison City were in the top 5 for total number of NBCTS in the state of Alabama and Huntsville City Schools is currently ranked number 2 in the state for current number of NBCT candidates.

For more information, please visit www.theschoolsfoundation.org/raise-your-hand.