15 Teachers Receive Top Certification
Fifteen Clay County public school teachers this year have achieved national certification, the highest professional credential in the education field.
The new additions bring Clay’s pool of nationally certified teachers to 132.
The process is voluntary and takes nearly a year to complete. Teachers apply to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, a Michigan-based nonprofit group, and go through extensive performance reviews.
Among other things, they have to take written tests and submit portfolios with lesson plans, student work samples and videotapes of their classes, and analyses of classroom teaching and student learning. Certification lasts 10 years.
The Clay teachers receiving national certification in 2006-07, are:
— Tara Bunn, Montclair Elementary, fourth grade
— Tracy Burt, Montclair, fourth grade
— Ellen Deel, Wilkinson Elementary, educable mentally handicapped
— Michelle Flynn, Fleming Island High, history/geography
— Sandra Henney, S. Bryan Jennings Elementary, second grade
— Judith Lewis, Orange Park Elementary, first grade
— Deborah Loudy, Ridgeview High, language arts
— Staci McCauley, The OakLeaf School, language arts
— Maristella Miller, Orange Park High, art
— Arleen Muniz, Fleming Island High, language arts
— Rhonda Pippin, Fleming Island Elementary, varying exceptionalities
— Kimber Rauth, Orange Park Elementary, fourth grade
— Cynthia Sease, Jennings Elementary, fourth grade
— Debbie Walker, McRae Elementary, fourth grade
— Susan Worthington, Wilk- inson, varying exceptionalities.
The newly certified teachers will be recognized at the Feb. 15 School Board meeting.
The certification program is part of the Florida Excellent Teacher Program, paid for by the Florida Department of Education. In 1998, the Legislature began giving more salary – 10 percent of the average teaching salary in the state – to teachers who completed the process.
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