CHARLESTON, W.Va. — 70 West Virginia teachers were honored Tuesday evening after earning their National Board Certification, with many of them walking across the stage of the state Culture Center in Charleston.
The West Virginia Department of Education hosted the ceremony, which also recognized 77 teachers that maintained their certification.
Bridget Phillips
“It’s something they deserve,” said Bridget Phillips, coordinator with the West Virginia Department of Education. “We have to acknowledge their hard work.”
According to Phillips, West Virginia ranks 11th in the nation for percentage of Nationally Board-Certified teachers per capita. The process for obtaining National Board Certification is completely voluntary and typically takes around three years to earn.
Adena Barnette-Miller, a high school teacher in Jackson County who earned her certification in just one year, says this was a career highlight.
“This is such a big day. This is a huge undertaking,” ” Barnette-Miller said. “To be here in this moment, to be looking at this stage and to know I’m getting ready to walk across it and say to the world I’m Nationally Board Certified, that’s a huge accomplishment.”
To obtain the certification in just a year’s time, Barnette-Miller, who admitted that she was initially scared to make the commitment, had to make extra sacrifices away from the classroom.
“I wrote (papers) for six-and-a-half hours on Christmas Day, I wrote on Christmas Eve, I wrote on the day after Christmas, I wrote on New Year’s (Day). Any free moment I had, I was working on this process,” Barnette-Miller said.
Ashley Kinker is an elementary school teacher in Cabell County. She agrees that the process was a challenge throughout the couple of years she worked towards the certification.
“It was a huge sacrifice, and it takes your family being behind you and supporting you through the process,” Kinkler said. “There were many weekends, evenings, holidays, breaks staying late after school.”
Teachers working towards the certification also have to pay up front for all related fees, but the state provides re-imbursements once the process is complete. Teachers also receive a $3,500 stipend for each year their certification remains valid.
Phillips, who earned her certification years ago, says that the incentives are nice, but most teachers get the certification for more humble reasons.
“If you talked to the teachers that go through it, including myself, it’s not about the money,” Phillips said. “The money is nice and well-deserved because we all know that teachers need to be paid more, but it’s so much more. It’s such a great reflective process and it doesn’t take you out of the classroom.”
Phillips also says the process gave her a completely different outlook on her job.
“When I went through it, it changed me as a teacher,” Phillips said. “It made me a much better, more reflective practitioner, and it just made me love teaching again.”
Barnette-Miller, when asked about what the accomplishment meant to her, said it’s a milestone for her entire classroom.
“It means a lot because it’s not just me, it’s also all of my students and the amazing things that we accomplish in the classroom together. If it wasn’t for the students that I teach every day, I wouldn’t be able to accomplish this because for me to be able to prove that I’m an effective educator, it takes them,” Barnette-Miller said.
“The reason I put so much work into it is because I knew that the things that my students were doing were awesome and I wanted to be able to convey that to the evaluators,” Barnette-Miller said.