What: South Carolina’s First-Ever Local National Board Policy Summit
Where: Hartsville Middle School, Hartsville, S.C.Time: 9:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.
Contact: Malia Dunn, NBCT Region 3 Leader, mdunn@chesterfield.k12.sc.us 

ROCK HILL—Last summer’s statewide National Board Policy Summit generated a vast amount of positive interaction between National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) and policymakers, nine Pee Dee counties have joined to form the state’s first-ever local NB Policy Summit.

The one-day summit, scheduled in Hartsville, S.C., will bring together NBCTs from Chesterfield, Darlington, Dillon, Fairfield, Kershaw, Lee, Marion, Marlboro and Williamsburg counties to generate a set recommendations to be used when talking to policy makers about improving learning and teaching for everyone in South Carolina.

To be held at Hartsville Middle School from 9 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., the summit will feature session topics such as “Teaching for Tomorrow: The Need for Innovation,” “Utilizations of NBCTs: How We Can Help,” Effective Instructional Leadership: Recommendations for School/District Administration,” and “Growing and Keeping Our Own: Professional Development That Makes a Difference.”

NBCTs at the statewide summit in August 2006 shared their collective knowledge in how to recruit and retain accomplished teachers in the State’s high needs schools and have presented recommendations to local and state policymakers in the past year. Expectations for the local summit are grand as educators will be more apt to sharing insight towards corrective action on a more specific, localized level.

CERRA, an independent state agency located on the campus of Winthrop University, is the oldest and most established teacher recruitment program in the country. The purpose of CERRA is to provide leadership in identifying, attracting, placing and retaining well-qualified individuals for the teaching profession in South Carolina. CERRA’s programs have been adopted at school, district and state levels in more than 30 states in the United States.