NTL Reflections 2025 Jayla Neely

The Multi-Layered Benefits of National Board Certification through the Nurturing Teacher Leadership Program

My name is Jayla Neely. I am a National Board Certified Teacher (NBCT) in Early through Middle Childhood Art. I teach Visual Art to Kindergarten – 8^th grade students on the South Side of Chicago. The first time I heard of National Board Certification was in 2019 during my first year teaching, the year of The Strike and Covid. My CTU delegate, Kim Walls-Kirk, NBCT, a colleague of color, repeatedly told me two things: 1). I needed to sign up for the CTU’s We Care new teacher mentoring program, and 2). Once I hit year three, I must sign up to sit for National Board Certification through the Nurturing Teacher Leadership (NTL) program, and she would make sure I did. I didn’t truly understand why she was so passionate about it, but 3 years later, when I was deep in the throes of National Board Certification, I would learn, through my own experience, why she was so passionate. Because now I was, as well.

In my third year of teaching, I moved to a school where I taught and worked with an assistant principal, an instructional coach, and three other educators, all of whom were Black women, like myself, and all who were National Board Certified. Seeing these teachers lead classrooms with such passion, expertise, and high standards encouraged me to ask questions and learn about the National Board process. They all encouraged me to attend an NTL recruitment session and complete a profile of my professional practice (such as it was at the time), so NTL could examine my strengths and needs and make a plan for my candidacy support. I expressed nervousness about not being good enough and about needing more experience before undertaking this intensive assessment process. They all told me that the Nurturing Teacher Leadership program would move me to where I needed to be professionally, and that the program’s supports and structure would develop my teaching practices in ways I couldn’t yet imagine. I trusted my NBCT colleagues and administrator and was convinced. That year, along with a colleague, I signed up.

Once I committed, I read (and read and read) the National Board’s 5 Core Propositions, standards, and portfolio directions for the accomplished teaching that would lead me to complete and master the NB Art certificate requirements, and hopefully achieve certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS). I was quickly overwhelmed, but NTL placed me in a cohort with content-specific NBCT mentors who helped clarify and define what was required for each of the four portfolio components that I needed to submit to NBPTS. Over the course of the program, they helped my cohort members and me break apart each of the nine standards of accomplished practice in our field of art and determine what they might look like in each of our classrooms and teaching situations. In addition to helping us grow in the teaching of the discipline of art and our respective developmental levels, they also taught us how to enhance practices many of us were already doing to ensure our students were receiving culturally responsive, relevant curriculum and instruction. In weekly cohort meetings and virtual mentoring between classes with NBCT mentors and colleagues from across the district, my colleagues and I learned from each other and influenced the teaching and student learning of art throughout Chicago. I can’t imagine tackling this rigorous assessment process without NTL’s support. It’s not hard to understand why NTL has an achievement rate of 90% compared to the national rate of 71%. NTL doesn’t just develop NBCTs; they improve teaching for hundreds of teachers and increase learning for thousands of students.

I saw self-improvement in how the National Board process pushed me to analyze how my students learn art and how their developmental stages, interests, and cultural identities influence their learning. From this analysis, I realized that I needed to include more of my students’ interests and cultural identities in my practice, so I surveyed my students about the types of artists they wanted to learn more about. The results showed they wanted to learn about Black artists who looked like them. To incorporate my students’ interests and culture into my curriculum, I knew that I would have to make adjustments. In my unit, called Investigators, I challenged students to become ‘art investigators’. My goals for this unit were for the students to uncover the meaning of various artwork and defend their claims with observable evidence. Instead of showing artwork by artists like Georges Seurat and Dorothea Lange, I used this unit to introduce students to the work of famous Black artists Carrie Mae Weems, Kerry James Marshall, Faith Ringgold, and Bisa Butler. I demonstrated how to start their investigation of the artwork by asking three main questions: What’s going on in this image? What makes you think that? What else can you find? After some large-group practice, students worked in small groups to start their own investigations of artwork they selected. While I observed students working, I noticed they were very engaged in their investigation and also excited to participate in the discussion. In our unit wrap-up, students commented that the artwork felt familiar and made the discussions more interesting. By listening to my students’ interests and making adjustments, I was able to introduce them to artists who shared their cultural identities while improving their mastery of unit goals.

Along with our mentors, my art cohort colleagues also routinely shared their areas of expertise to help each other strengthen our content knowledge, providing professional development on topics such as weaving, ceramics, 3D design, and photography. These presentations not only helped prepare us for the content assessment exams but also enabled us to bring more knowledge back to our students. Being in this learning community with other art educators enabled me to dive deeply into material about which I needed support before introducing the content to my students. For example, I had limited exposure to working with ceramics when I began the NBC process, so I wasn’t confident teaching it. But after visiting my mentor’s elementary ceramics classroom,  learning about teaching ceramics, and getting feedback and advice from my NTL cohort, I was able to not only teach ceramics, but also to build an elementary ceramics program at my school.

Another unit I taught during the Board Certification process focused on improving fine motor skills through collage-making with my 2nd and 3^rd grade students who had severe and profound special education needs. My NTL art cohort helped me create a unit that met my students’ differentiated needs by setting specific goals aligned with what my students could achieve. The goal for this unit was for my students to improve their fine motor skills through using modified art tools and to correctly identify elements of art, like shape, line and color in various works of art. I learned through NTL PD that students learn better when they can make personal connections to what they are learning. Additionally, to help students practice identifying elements of art, I introduced them to Henri Matisse, a disabled artist, and Reggie Laurent, a Black Chicago-based artist. I taught about these two artists because they reflected the identities of my students, who have disabilities and are predominantly Black. Both artists also heavily feature shapes in their work, but in different ways. Henri Matisse turned to collage as an art form after his health declined; he had to modify his approach, and that became the basis for his most famous works.  I used collage, like Mattise, to improve students’ fine motor skills through scissor, tracing and glueing skills. Laurent’s use of bold color and simple, yet layered, shapes allowed students to play with composition. At the end of the unit, my students produced artwork inspired by the featured artists and that showcased their improved fine motor skills.

Traditionally, in assessment, final projects are given more weight than in-progress work. NTL encouraged me to reflect on and change how I assessed students’ artwork. I shifted to focusing on in-progress work because it allowed me to see evidence of their learning and make real-time adjustments, enabling my students to receive targeted feedback that enhanced their technical skills and understanding of concepts in their artworks. For example, I changed how I introduced projects to students. I would introduce the rubric early in the unit so that students understood the grading criteria, could self-assess, and could change processes that would improve their work. When I gave students feedback, we would look at the rubric together to see where they aligned to the various levels of mastery, which gave them benchmarks. Providing students with benchmarks allowed for more opportunities for them to self-assess, leading to mastery of the unit goals.

When I achieved Board Certification I received many benefits, including a 50% reduction in ISBE license renewal hours for the life of my NBPTS certification, an annual stipend per the CTU/CPS contract, and more opportunities for leadership. Completing the process through NTL propelled my salary from Lane 1 to Lane 4, having participated in weekly professional development that was always aligned with the NBC standards. A major benefit of this program was that NTL provided a community of art educators who offered feedback, support, and opportunities for growth, helping me not only improve as an art educator but also gain confidence in my expertise and leadership. That expertise has helped me advocate for professional development relevant to Specialist Teachers (Art, Music, Tech, and PE) and be a voice in our school governance.

In addition to positively influencing my teaching practice, the NTL community supported me when, due to budget changes, I was laid off at the end of the first of my two years in NTL. I was devastated, scared, and worried about my income and how I would complete NBC. I would not have left my old school by choice, especially in the middle of NBC candidacy. I was leaving a community of NBCTs, who all understood my NBC process. What if I couldn’t find a new school in time? That summer could have easily been my worst since coming to CPS, but this amazing community helped me find a new school, provided references, and reassured me that I could be successful there. My cohort reminded me that my teaching practices were aligned with the NBPTS Art standards, and that I could restart anywhere and thrive.

Even though I have achieved NBC, the pinnacle of accomplished practice, I know that my work is far from over. When I reflect on how I got to where I am today, I remember my circle of support and know that I want to connect with new art teachers in CPS. I want to make these connections because, just as art is enhanced by community, so is teaching. Having a supportive community of teachers helps retain new teachers, especially those of color. So I have become a mentor in CTU’s We Care program, the very program I joined in my first year of teaching. I model my mentoring after my NTL mentors and share my artistic knowledge and experiences with the new generation of art teachers. My future as an art educator, leader, and continual learner looks bright because of my NBCT journey through Nurturing Teacher Leadership.