OK NBCT Summit

What will it take to get NBCTs in high needs schools? When we think about high needs/ hard to staff schools what are the barriers to utilizing the skills, knowledge and abilities of NBCTs? What actions can be put in place? What can individual NBCTs do? How do these actions translate into policy at the state and local level?

These were just a few of the questions that NBCTs, policy makers, principals, superintendents and other stakeholders grappled with at the Oklahoma NBCT Summit this last week.

My role? To train the NBCTs who facilitated the groups crafting the recommendations and develop the process that would extract these recommendations from groups 40+ strong. The 22 NBCTs were trained virtually on Elluminate and then in person the night before the summit.

The Governor was extremely supportive in these recommendations becoming action. View short clip here. There were over 500 NBCTs and interested stakeholders in attendance. There were ten facilitated groups who had the utlimate goal of crafting policy recommendations in the morning that would be shared with the legislative panel that afternoon. The recommendations were around 10 key topics related to staffing and supporting high needs schools. The topics are as follows:

* Collaborative Cultures * Cultural Competence * “Growing Your Own” * Incentives for Teaching * Leading from the Classroom

* Leading Teacher Leaders * Mentoring and Induction * Professional Development * Student Learning * Teacher Preparation

Each group followed a set process to generate 10 recommendations- out of which one from each group was shared in the afternoon session. The other recommendations, as well as other issues, suggestions, and concerns recorded during the summit will be compiled into a policy paper by the Center for Teaching Quality. It will be interest

ing to see the voice of accomplished teachers elevated as this NEA initiative moves across the nation. NC was the first Summit - the Center for Teaching Quality summarized the ideas generated at the summit in a report released in February 2006 entitled  Every Child Deserves Our Best  (PDF, 1 MB, 28 pgs). This document, which is being distributed to policy makers all over North Carolina, offers very concrete recommendations on ways to support excellent teaching in the state's most challenged schools.

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