CdA District teachers receive board certification

Three teachers from the Coeur d’Alene School District earned certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards recently, an honor that only a handful of other Coeur d’Alene teachers have earned.

Mike Nelson, a Spanish teacher at Coeur d’Alene High, Julie Powell, a music teacher at Lakes Middle School, and Susie Brott, a special education teacher at Fernan Elementary, found out in mid-December that they had earned certification, considered to be highest level of certification in public education.

“Once you’re done, you’re certified to teach anywhere,” Brott said.

Only nine other teachers in Coeur d’Alene and about 320 in the state have the certification, which brings a yearly $2,000 pay bonus from the state Board of Education for the first five years of the 10-year certification.

Nelson is the only teacher in Idaho nationally certified as a teacher of languages other than English, “which represent a high honor for me and my family,” he wrote in an e-mail.

“The process has allowed me to refine my commitment to student learning, improve my content knowledge of the language and how it works, manage my students and their assignments, join a large community of outstanding educators and, in my eyes, most importantly for this process, systematically think about how it all comes together,” Nelson continued.

Earning certification takes about a year and involves an extensive portfolio showcasing classroom work. A series of computerized exams is also required, and candidates take classes through the University of Idaho. Brott said security was so tight at the exams – taken in Spokane – that she had to open up a locket she was wearing to prove there was nothing inside that could assist her on the exam.

“If you weren’t nervous now, you would be after the security test,” she laughed.

Wrote Nelson, “Although a very arduous process, I would highly recommend it to any educator who is looking to grow professionally and find the best known ways to impact how students perform with the material.”

Superintendent Harry Amend called the certification the “crème de la crème of teaching certification.”

“No matter where you are in the country, everyone recognizes it,” Amend said. “It’s definitely a feather in their caps.”

Brott and Nelson will have some company at their respective schools. Two others at Fernan Elementary and Coeur d’Alene High earned the honor in past years – Barbara Crow and Charlene Soucy at Fernan and Erik Karnes and Eric Louis at Coeur d’Alene High.

Other teachers in the Coeur d’Alene District who’ve earned this honor include: Michelle Faucher-Sharples, Bryan Elementary; Nancy Mueller, Winton Elementary; Andrea Partington, Lake City High; Lynne Peters and Elizabeth Wright, Woodland Middle School; and Deann Shillington, Canfield Middle School.