Other Certificate Areas

Students need not be seen in the context of a classroom group. Teachers working one-on-one, who have an Individual Education Plan (IEP) or Individual Family Service Plan (IFSP) under federal or state mandated special education laws are eligible to pursue this certificate. In most states the students included under these mandates would be birth to 21. In states where the mandate extends special education beyond age 21, teachers should contact NBPTS prior to applying to determine whether their teaching context meets the eligibility requirements for candidacy.

The IFSP is required by law for teachers providing infant/toddler services. It is the equivalent of the IEP, but because services are required to be family - not child-centered, the law identifies this as an IFSP rather than an IEP.

Teachers of students at all levels have exceptional needs students in their classrooms and must teach the students enrolled in their classes. Featuring your practice with a student with disabilities is not a disadvantage. You are given an opportunity to provide your instructional context in each classroom portfolio entry. If you read the questions for the Written Commentary Section 1: Instructional Context, you will find that you are asked if there are exceptional needs students in your class and you are asked to describe the needs of those students.
Featuring work with a student with exceptionalities can provide fertile material for discussion of how you involve the student in the class, how you use knowledge of the student to provide instruction appropriate to the individual needs of that student, etc. Assessors evaluate the evidence you submit. If you make strong connections between what you write and what assessors see, it can make a very compelling case for your responsiveness to diverse learners. Depending on the entry, it may be the best of choices to feature work with a student with disabilities, especially since increasing numbers of students with disabilities are included in the general education classroom. Remember, it is your actions, analysis and reflection on your teaching, and not the performance of the student, that is assessed.

The relevant requirement for Portfolio Entry 3: Demonstrating and Developing Musicianship is that teachers "model expert musicianship through singing, playing, or conducting within the context of the lesson" featured in the entry. That is, candidates are expected to use their skills as musicians to provide instructional models for their students. Entry 4: Documented Accomplishments may be a place to enter other musical activities as evidence, but candidates are reminded that for this entry all evidence needs to be tied to its impact on student learning. Consult the section of the Documented Accomplishments Entry: "Making Good Choices," before deciding which accomplishments to include. In the context of the assessment center, candidates will be asked to demonstrate other aspects of their musicianship—as diagnosticians, theoreticians, composers, etc.

National Board Certification is designed to assess a teacher's performance in a wide range of classroom settings. We encourage candidates in all certificate areas to use more than one class when completing the portfolio in order to demonstrate the broadest range of their teaching practice. Therefore, music teachers who have multiple classes that meet the age and content requirements should take advantage of the availability of these different classes when completing the classroom-based entries. However, if a music teacher has access to only one class that meets the age and content requirements for their certificate area, it is permissible to use a single class for all three of the classroom-based portfolio entries. Please keep in mind that all three portfolio entries must come from different units and that work samples and artifacts must feature different students. In other words, music teachers will need to show work with different students, at different points of instruction, working with different musical challenges. The Entry Tracking Form can be used to help keep a record of the selections you make as you complete your classroom-based portfolio entries. This form is included on the portfolio CD-ROM, under Resources - Templates for Portfolio Development.

Candidates will need to consider whether a performance is the best choice for a video recording, since the teacher's skills as a diagnostician, instructor, etc. are being assessed, not the product of the teacher's and students' efforts. While many teachers would like to be judged on the performances of their students, this would create a highly inequitable assessment. It is the teacher's thoughts and actions to affect change in student performance that marks accomplishment for music teachers.

No. Many, perhaps most, EMC candidates will naturally focus their portfolios on their work as general music teachers. This was anticipated in the development of the assessments. When registering for the assessment center, EMC candidates will declare band, orchestra, or vocal music, just as their EAYA counterparts will. This is due to the nature of both Diagnostic Skills and Applied Theory/Composition, where recordings, scores, and candidate compositions are part of the exercises, and need to be specific to a "performing" area.

Yes, Music candidates can change their focus from one specialty area (performance perspective) in response to portfolio entries, to a different specialty area in response to assessment center exercises. Music candidates may also feature more than one area in their portfolio entries. However, Music candidates must focus on only ONE declared specialty area for the assessment center exercises. Music candidates will need to declare their specialty area for the assessment center early in the process. Once they have chosen, they are committed to the same areas when retaking assessment center exercises. Specialty areas available for Music candidates are band, orchestra, or vocal music.

All World Language teachers, including teachers of Heritage language learners, should base their responses to the portfolios on a careful reading of the World Languages Other than English Standards, and of the individual portfolio entries. A World Language teacher who feels that she or he can present evidence of meeting the standards for accomplished World Languages teachers is encouraged to apply. Knowledge of Students is a requirement of all three classroom-based portfolios. Thus, Written Commentary questions in each of the three classroom-based portfolio entries ask the teacher to provide information about her or his teaching context, and her or his students, including knowledge of the students' language background. This is information that assessors will take into account when scoring the portfolios. Teachers of Heritage language learners are thus offered the same opportunity to provide evidence of accomplished teaching as are all other World Language teachers.

Like all National Board certification candidates, World Languages teachers who teach in Spanish immersion programs must give careful consideration to which certificate is right for them. Specifically, these teachers need to consider whether the World Languages Other than English certificate is the most appropriate for their teaching contexts. One of the Generalist or other content specialist certificates, combined with the Spanish Language Option, may be more appropriate for some Spanish immersion teachers. For all WLOE candidates in Spanish or French immersion programs, however, it is important that in their portfolio responses they present evidence of language teaching in the three classroom-based portfolio entries, and that they provide evidence in the Documented Accomplishments Entry of how their work with families and the community as well as colleagues and other professionals has an impact on student language learning.

Candidates in World Languages Other Than English must consistently focus both the portfolio entries and the assessment center exercises in the target language or "Specialty Area" they selected. Your entries will be scored by a World Languages Other than English teacher in this target language. Please remember to indicate your target language on the entry envelopes you will place your entries in for return to the NBPTS Processing Center. If you do not recall which language you selected on your application, you may phone our customer support representatives at 1-800-22TEACH.

National Board Certification is designed to assess a teacher's performance in a wide range of classroom settings. We encourage teachers to use more than one class in completing the portfolio in order to demonstrate the broadest range of their teaching practice. Therefore, teachers who have multiple classes that meet the age and content requirements should take advantage of the availability of these different classes when completing the classroom-based entries. However, if a teacher has access to only one class that meets the age and content requirements for their certificate area, it is permissible to use a single class for all three of the classroom-based portfolio entries. Please keep in mind that all three classroom-based portfolio entries must come from different units and that work samples and artifacts must feature different students.

Although the NBPTS Career and Technical Education Standards may not specifically mention all career and technical education fields currently being taught in schools, this does not prohibit any eligible teacher from pursuing this certificate if they believe it is the one most appropriate to their practice. Ultimately, however, this decision is up to the individual teacher. Our recommendation to any teacher—Career and Technical Education teachers included—is to study the Standards carefully in the certificate field, as well as the demands of the entries and exercises to determine if the entries and exercises will allow them to demonstrate their highest level of accomplished teaching practice.

Although some of the Standards cover Middle Childhood through Early Adolescence Mathematics, at this time, a mathematics certificate area for the Middle Childhood developmental level is not scheduled for development. However, our recommendation to you is to study the Early Childhood/Generalist and Middle Childhood/Generalist certificate area overviews. If your teaching practice meets these descriptions, carefully study the standards and the demands of the entries and exercises to see if the entries and exercises will allow you to demonstrate your highest level of accomplished teaching practice.

At this time, the National Board does not offer a certificate specific to speech and language specialists, and has no plans for developing standards for this area of practice. It is possible that speech and language specialists may qualify for National Board Certification based on a review of the Exceptional Needs Specialist standards and their particular teaching context. Our recommendation is to carefully study the standards and the demands of the entries and exercises, as well as the level of content knowledge required, to see if the entries and exercises will allow you to demonstrate your highest level of accomplished teaching practice. In order to apply, a speech therapist must have a license issued by the state's Department of Education.

In the certificate framework, the National Board did not envision Gifted and Talented as part of the Exceptional Needs Specialist category. As a matter of licensing, some states include Gifted and Talented under special education, as does the Council for Exceptional Children. At the time that Gifted and Talented became part of Board discussion, a compelling case was not made for Gifted and Talented in the certificates already outlined. At a meeting of state department of education and support program representatives (the National Board Academy) a number of educators familiar with Gifted and Talented programs had the opportunity to review the Exceptional Needs Standards and an overview of the portfolio specifications. It was their opinion that teachers in the area of Gifted and Talented would find a much better fit in the content or generalist certificates. As always, the best advice is for Gifted and Talented teachers to examine the standards and certificate overviews pages of the Guide to National Board Certification to determine which certificate is the best fit based on their backgrounds of experience.

You do not need to wait until your box of materials arrives to begin work on your portfolio. You can immediately download the standards and the portfolio instructions for your certificate and begin studying the standards and reviewing the requirements for the portfolio entries. You can then begin planning for lessons and students you wish to feature in your classroom-based entries. Remember that all evidence of your work with students must be gathered during the 12-month period prior to your portfolio deadline.

The Early Childhood through Young Adulthood/School Counseling certificate is appropriate for counselors who work with students in preK-12th grade educational settings. Candidates must have access to a whole class, a small group, and an individual student, in which the student(s) are in grades preK-12 (ages 3-18+) during the period of time you collect evidence for your entries.

The School Counseling Standards were developed by a committee of school counselors and other educators with expertise in the field tasked to define outstanding practice in the field of school counseling. An examination of the composition of the School Counseling Standards Committee reveals that its members consisted of a majority of practicing school counselors and other educators who work or have worked as counselor educators over many years. The complete listing of the members of the School Counseling Standards Committee along with the positions they held while serving on the committee can be found in the back of the standards document.

Candidates in administrative positions or those serving the adult learner community may pursue National Board Certification only if they are able to provide evidence of classroom work with pre-K through 12 students. Candidates for ECYA/School Counseling must have access to a whole class, a small group, and an individual student drawn from grades preK-12 (ages 3-18+) during the term of candidacy. The 18+ age designation does not apply to college students, the "+" applies to those students in school who do not graduate at age 18. The standards apply to students working towards high school degrees or equivalent—as compared to community college.