Nurturing Teacher Leadership

NTL Announcements

The National Board Recruitment meeting for March 30, 2020, has been rescheduled to Thursday, April 23, 2020.

Stay tuned for a recruitment meeting date update if schools remain closed on April 23, 2020.

Our next National Board Certification (NBC) recruitment meeting is scheduled for April 23, 2020, but will happen ONLY if CPS schools are back in session, and will be held in small groups, individually, or virtually. We will schedule future NBC recruitment meetings when we know the status of CPS re-opening. If you have already registered for a recruitment meeting we will be (or have been) in touch with you about a virtual meeting or rescheduling when the time is right.

For any questions about National Board Certification or to pre-register for a future recruitment meeting, please reach out to Lynn Cherkasky-Davis at LynnCherkasky-Davis@ctuf.org and/or visit our website at ctuf.org/ntl.

NBCT CPS/CTU Stipends

CPS expects that the first half of your CTU/CPS 2019-24 Bargaining Agreement stipend for being a National Board Certified Teacher in CPS will be on your March 13, 2020 paycheck deposit. This amount represents the first semester’s stipend, one-half of the total for the 2019/20 school year.

If you taught all 89 days of the first semester, your stipend will be $1009.74 (minus taxes).
If your National Board Certificate expired November of 2019; you became an NBCT this December; you resigned or retired mid-semester; or were on leave (or not teaching) during part of the first semester, your stipend will be pro-rated to reflect the number of days you were teaching.
If you are an administrator or in a non-teaching role not covered by the CPS/CTU contract you are not entitled to the stipend.

Your second-semester stipend will be disbursed toward the end of July or beginning of August.

Nurturing Teacher Leadership, established in 1997, is the Chicago Teachers Union/Chicago Public Schools 2-year program of professional development and candidate support that prepares Chicago Public School teachers for National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) certification, the highest credential a teacher can earn.

Nurturing Teacher Leadership has a success rate of more than 94%, twice the national average.

Did you know that:

Our new contract provides a $2200 pensionable STIPEND for all National Board Certified Teachers, librarians and counselors (going up to $2295 by the end of the contract).
Our 2-year National Board Certification support program (Nurturing Teacher Leadership) is FREE to CTU members.
You can earn a Master’s Degree and/or graduate credit while going through the NBC process.
You can move to Lane 5 on the CPS pay scale during the program.
You earn an ISBE National Board Certification Endorsement on your Professional Educator License – and all the PD Hours you need for your entire re-licensure cycle. And every cycle thereafter National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) only have to complete half the ISBE PD hours
94% of our candidates achieve National Board Certification (twice the national average).
Paid teacher leadership roles abound after you attain National Board Certification.
Research from the University of Chicago Consortium shows that CPS NBCTs score higher on their REACH ratings than non NBCTs.
CTU manages all National Board Certification programming for CPS.
More than 2,200 CPS teachers, counselors, and librarians have achieved National Board Certification – earning us the status of being the district with the 3rd largest number of NBCTs in the nation.
YOUR STUDENTS ARE THE BENEFICIARIES OF YOUR PROFESSIONAL LEARNING!

NTL Candidate Testimonials

Why I went through Board Certification as a secondary English Language Arts teacher:

I went through National Board Certification for the “ELA-Adolescent and Young Adulthood” certificate because I believe in the advice that we give our students: we grow through challenge. I want to be the best teacher I can be, and Nurturing Teacher Leadership and National Board Certification seemed like a challenge that I could use to propel my thinking about best practices. I was right: my mentors pushed my practice and methods to a level of detail that seemed superhuman until I was forced to do it.

How I am a better teacher:

I now have a refined sense for how rubrics and feedback in teaching the English Language Arts can create fairness in the classroom, and I understand better how viewing texts can cause all students, especially English learners, to achieve higher-order thinking on a daily basis. I grew in my understanding of how optimal solutions to instructional challenges depend on our knowledge of what one specific student needs most at one specific moment in time.

How what I learned has impacted my students:

Student learning has increased because I’m more conscious of how students with various interests, styles, and levels of readiness learn new information and skills and because I’m more concerned with how I can prove to myself (and to students) that learning has occurred.

– Matthew L