Community Help NeededThe Chagrin Falls Exempted Village Schools will be…

June 20, 2013

Community Help Needed
The Chagrin Falls Exempted Village Schools will be completing a comprehensive strategic planning process next school year. The initial phase is to gather relevant data and input from everyone in the entire community.
A survey has been placed on the district’s webpage at www.chagrin
schools.org to help gather everyone’s ideas.
Please take the time to complete this survey about our schools. We also ask that you encourage other members of the community to participate. Everyone’s input is vitally important as together we plan the future of our schools.
The district is asking that all surveys be completed by July 15.
Gurney Principal to Speak at National Convention
The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) develops professional standards for accomplished educators, creates and administers National Board Certification and promotes nationally certified educators in educational reform. Over 20 years ago, NBPTS developed the National Board Certification for Teachers, which is a voluntary, rigorous assessment process designed to identify, recognize and retain accomplished teachers.
Gurney Elementary School has had eight teachers achieve National Board Certification (NBCT) and two more teachers completed the process this spring. Due to the success of the NBCT, the board has developed National Board Certification for Principals (NBCP). This is the first national certification program for accomplished school-based administrators.
Creating NBCP is almost complete as the pilot cohort of principals has completed the two-year process this spring. Gurney’s principal, Dr. Rachel Jones, was chosen to be a participant in the pilot process and has dedicated the past two years to completing all of the evaluative, analytic and interactive tasks required. All activities were centered on the nine standards of accomplished principals that are organized into skills, applications and dispositions. These interactive and systems-based tasks are designed to ensure that relevant site-based evidence is captured, demonstrating principals’ every day, practical application.
Dr. Jones will be a speaker this June at an annual NBPTS symposium in San Diego, Calif. This symposium is run by National University, which offers the National Board Certification process within their master’s degree for educators. They have a great deal of principals ready to learn the best way to prepare for their upcoming opportunity to engage in the National Board process. Dr. Jones will be sharing with them her two-year experiences, the long-term impact she feels the process has had on her professional practices and her advice on approaching the comprehensive set of tasks.
Dr. Jones said about her program, “The more educators we can involve in such a rigorous and comprehensive process to measure true, accomplished educator practices, the stronger we will be as a profession in the United States. I am so proud to be a part of it!”