Mrs. Fasciotto, NBCT

Remember this?

I worked my pregnant little tail off all year last year to obtain the holy grail of teaching certificates.  I completed four gigantic and wordy portfolio pieces.  Then I took six written assessments to prove that I know my stuff.  After all of that hard work, I boxed it all up and sent it to Texas in the hopes that ten unknown people in ten unknown places across the United States would deem my work worthy enough to be considered "Certified."  Then I resigned myself to wait until November.  Ugh!  NOVEMBER!  It's SO far away!  How will I EVER make it to NOVEMBER???

Wait....it's what now?  I'm sorry, you say it's NOVEMBER?  Um, well, I'm kind of used to waiting....and....I'm not sure I really wanna know, so......maybe I shouldn't look at those scores.  

That's right, the scores were posted THIS MORNING!  It's already here!  How did that happen???  ACCKKK!!!

Deep breath.......and release.....okay.

Looking back, I know this process taught me more about myself as a teacher than I ever could have hoped, and I improved as a teacher more than I ever could have done on my own.  So, regardless of the outcome, at least I knew I would walk away saying that I'm a better teacher...

BUT.....

It sure would be nice to say I'm a National Board Certified Teacher!  The pay raise wouldn't hurt either.

After a sleepless night, plenty of nail biting, and lots of wishful thinking/praying, I summoned up the nerve to check my scores this morning at school.  Luckily, I've been spending my days in the hallway with another teacher while our student teachers have been "solo-ing," so Mrs. Loper was there when I tried to log onto the website over and over and over and over again.  We finally got sick of all the suspense and I made one of my students stand by my computer to push the button every 10 seconds until the screen changed.  After about five minutes she said, "Mrs. Fasciotto!  It changed!  You're in!"  I ran to the other side of my computer, expecting to see a list of portfolio and assessment scores, looking for the magic number to be higher than 275, but was surprised to see the following message:

Congratulations!  You're a National Board Certified Teacher!

YIIIIPPPPPEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!  I shouted.  My student about hit the floor to take cover when all the other teachers ran out into the hallway and screamed and shouted and jumped and had a little party with me right then and there.  I interrupted my student teacher in the middle of her morning meeting to tell all of my students that for the rest of the day, they must call me, "Mrs. Fasciotto, National Board Certified Teacher."  Then, I took my little trouble-maker around to visit the teachers who read all of my work last year so he could tell them, "My teacher's new name is: Mrs. Fasciotto, National Board Certified Teacher."  On our way to the principal's office, I made him practice about a hundred times, because, you know, he needs to be clear when speaking to the principal.....and I loved hearing it.

My National Board work was my "other baby" last school year.  I finished that sucker just in time to start a family.  Now I can focus on going onward and upward in my teaching career, knowing that I'm working to my FULL potential!  I'm so thankful for the opportunity to improve myself as a teacher!  Hip hip hooraayyyy!!!!