National Board Resource Center

The National Board Resource Center (NBRC) at UC Berkeley School of Education’s focus is to collectively transform the teaching and learning experience, and provide support to teachers seeking professional development and National Board Certification, the "gold standard" in teacher certification.

Services Offered:

NBRC Candidate Support Program

Currently the NBRC partners with the Nevada National Board Support Center to support 75 Oakland Unified School District teachers to pursue National Board Certification (NBC) we also serve Bay Area teachers, including SFUSD, to pursue and attain Board certification.

We leveraged the California Department of Education’s Candidate Subsidy Program and

National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) Incentive Program to recruit teachers to pursue Board certification.

The NBRC at UC Berkeley recruits current nationally certified board teachers (NBCT) to serve as facilitator coaches for Bay Area teachers pursuing NBC.

We prioritize recruiting and supporting historically resilient and marginalized teachers for NBC.

We also research the school-based conditions needed to retain and to develop the teacher leadership capacity of historically resilient and marginalized NBCTs in OUSD and Bay Area school districts.

Candidates receive the following:

support throughout the NBC candidacy,
support from National Board-Certified Teachers (NBCT) to complete the Four National Board Components and Five Core Propositions and includes writing and reading retreats,
support with the NBC application, and
support with the California Subsidy Program application for teachers working in high priority schools.

As the NBRC grows, we will offer NBC support to all California teachers for a fee.

Click here to register for the NBRC Candidate Support Program to pursue National Board Certification

NBRC Bridge Program

(Starting January 2025)

The Bridge Program is a community of practice which serves as a primer and bridge for educators who aspire to reach a gold standard level of accomplished teaching and or pursuit of National Board Certification (NBC), by introducing topics, concepts, and practices that are vital to their professional development, certification attainment, practice, and leadership.

The overarching objectives for the Bridge Program community of practice includes:

Professional Learning: opportunity to learn new conceptual material related to NBC that is intended to deepen understanding of the National Board Certification process.
Skill Development: build or practice new skills in a collegial, supportive environment.
Communication: create opportunities for collegial dialogue across school districts and grade levels
Relationship-building: enable participants to establish working relationships with colleagues from different schools and districts.

Bridge Program Format and Duration: 6 months (combination of 2 in-person/3 virtual meetings)

Click here to register for the NBRC Bridge program, a primer for National Board Certification