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Rachel Wegener is a high school English teacher in the Federal Way Public Schools who teaches 10th and 12th grade English. She's been with Federal Way for seven years, and we recently sat down to talk with her about what she's gained by becoming Nationally Board Certified.
"I'm really excited about working more with the families and the parents," Rachel commented. "It was really instilled in the whole process of National Boards -- getting them involved as well.
Rachel especially valued the way the National Boards add to a teacher's toolbox of useful skills. "Especially coming from the education system, we need to include families," she noted. "But how? So I've now created this survey to send home with kids to be based on the parent view, asking, 'Okay, what are you hoping to get? What do you see as struggles in your student, and how does your child like to be rewarded?' And so I'm really excited to work more closely with parents and get them involved in their student's education."
Becoming Nationally Board Certified helped Rachel to look forward to further developing her skills. "I'm also just looking forward to really honing in on my craft," she added. That was something that the national boards really helped me to do -- to pinpoint what's actually working, and why it's working."
Ultimately, Rachel felt that the entire experience was valuable, especially for the perspective it provided on the process. "It's just nice to be able to take a step back and look at it," she added. "Because even though the process was challenging, it was so rewarding to be able to see what I do and why I do it." For the first time, thanks to this experience, she was able to explain why she does what she does as an educator -- and why it works.
"Going in with this school year, and knowing that -- it's just going to be so much better for me and my students," she added.
Learn more about Rachel Wegener in her own words at https://youtu.be/gMImeQefSk8, and view additional interviews with National Board Certified Teachers in our NBCT Spotlight at https://www.psesd.org/news.
Meanwhile, to learn more about becoming Nationally Board Certified, head to https://www.nbpts.org/.