Urbana educators earn distinction

The path to becoming a National Board Certified Teacher is a long and difficult one. It involves videotaping class sessions, analyzing your own teaching, submitting student work, and a three-hour exam.
But the intensity of the process didn’t stop four Urbana School District staff members from pursuing—and achieving—the certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. .
“You’re really talking about people working very hard through this rigorous program to actually become Nationally Board Certified Teachers and we’re very, very proud of them,” Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Gayle Jeffries said. “Those teachers, when they go through that rigorous program, they have to know kids, so they have to know how to help kids learn.”
A second grade teacher, two music teachers, and a counselor are the latest to achieve the certification in Urbana. They agree that the process made them more reflective professionals, but each chose to pursue it for different reasons.
Cheryl Camacho, a second grade teacher at Urbana’s Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, didn’t begin her teaching career the traditional way. Instead, she was certified through Teach for America. Her unconventional entrance into teaching prompted her to pursue the National Board Certification.
“It presented a lot of challenges just as far as like being prepared to be in the classroom,” Camacho said of her experience with Teach for America. “It was really hard, you only get like a six week institute in the summer and I immediately saw the importance of professional development. In order for me to be a good teacher, I really needed to reach out and do more. So when I found out about National Board, I was really interested by it.
“Also, as an alternatively certified teacher, I just feel like I really wanted that mark of distinction because I think that sometimes people assume that if you didn’t go to undergrad for teaching that you don’t know what you’re doing,” Camacho added.
But that decision came with a price. Because Camacho had recently relocated from Atlanta, Ga., to teach in Urbana, she had to pay the $2,500 fee out of her own pocket. Teachers in the state of Illinois are eligible for grants to help defray the cost.
“For me, you know (I’m) like (a) broke teacher and (I had a) new baby at the time, my child was like three months old when I started going through the process, it was just like a really huge financial commitment,” Camacho said.
When the scores came out after Camacho’s first submission, she was nine points shy of the required score of 275. It was a “crushing” blow for the single mom, but after taking a year off for personal reasons, she decided to redo one of her submissions. The news was better the second time around.
It was a December day when Camacho, sitting in her classroom, logged on to check her score.
“When you go online to check your score, it comes up saying like congratulations, and when I saw congratulations, I knew I had achieved it. I just like jumped up and started running around,” Camacho said. “I was so excited and happy and proud.”
For two other Urbana School District employees, the process went more smoothly. Urbana Middle School band teacher Karen DeBauche and Urbana High School counselor Samuel Furrer tested the waters through a program called Take One! that allowed them to submit a single entry to have scored before deciding to go through the entire process.
“Being a clarinet player, I used to play clarinet rather than do my homework. My writing skills aren’t what I’d like them to be, so it gave me the opportunity to see if I could write at the level that was accepted and it gave me the opportunity to do that without losing a lot of money in the process,” DeBauche said of Take One!. “So when I passed that one entry, then I decided to go ahead and do the rest.”
DeBauche and Furrer both achieved on their first try, something 19 year classroom veteran DeBauche doesn’t take for granted.
“I was just amazed, thrilled, and excited. There are so many different feelings. You feel bad for the people who don’t because they worked just as hard as you did,” DeBauche said. “More than anything, I was really excited, because I really didn’t think I could do it.”
School counseling is one of the more recent subject areas to qualify for certification. And the topic is broad, spanning kindergarten through the senior year of high school. For Furrer, this meant a lot of studying for the exam since questions could range from counseling a five year old child to a senior in high school who needs help applying for college.
Since Furrer doesn’t teach in a classroom setting, his videotaped submissions included a career lesson integrating technology and an individual counseling session with a student planning for graduation.
But while the process was different, the effect on Furrer’s outlook on his profession reflected the sentiments of his colleagues.
“I went through the standards and it says (that) an accomplished counselor does this and that and all these things. If you were a person who met all those standards and did every one, you would be God,” Furrer said. “But you read through those, and part of it is reminding you of some things that you should be doing, causing you to look at your own practice in a reflective and critical way.”
Despite the obvious differences in professional responsibilities between a second grade teacher, a band director and a counselor, the ultimate goal and outcome of the process is very much the same.
“It’s interesting because in the end it’s all about student-centered learning and teaching to the diversity of classrooms that we all have,” DeBauche said. “And so a lot of what we had to do for National Board was articulate that in writing and prove it in the videos that accompanied the writing.”
The certification also means the staff will receive a pay increase from the state and district and opens the door to becoming Master Teacher. But for these educators, the certification is more about the professional improvement than monetary value.
“People that go through this process I think just kind of naturally become a little more involved as teachers and leaders, and that’s part of the expectation of the National Board process I think,” Furrer said. “You kind of emerge as a little more of a teacher leader. It proves that you know what you know.”