20 Chicago Public School Educators Receive Elite "Distinguished Teacher" Recognition Including Annual $10,000 Awards

CHICAGO, June 13, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Noble Network of Charter Schools has announced the first 20 recipients of its newly created Distinguished Teacher program. Distinguished Teacher provides an industry-changing approach to celebrating and rewarding teachers who are achieving an exceptional impact with students. Among other benefits, each Distinguished Teacher will receive $10,000 annually for as long as they remain teachers at Noble.

"Said in the simplest way, Distinguished Teacher is a program designed to identify, celebrate, reward, and learn from Noble's most impactful educators," said Constance Jones, CEO of Noble. "Part of our mission at Noble calls for creative classroom spaces that are transformational and empower students to lead exemplary lives. To this end, we invested years in research seeking the best ways to honor and reward teachers who have consistently achieved exceptional outcomes for our young people."

The 2018-2019 Noble Distinguished teachers are:

Ellen Metz, head of schools for Noble, added, "This program sets a new path in education that elevates the teaching profession. Distinguished Teachers will help inform teacher development and support across Noble. Too often the highest impact teachers feel compelled to exit the classroom. Noble aims to mitigate this national trend through the DT program."

Distinguished Teachers must be in at least their fourth year teaching at Noble, having exemplified Noble's core values and traits in five key areas:

• Student Growth: Are your students achieving exceptional growth?
• Classroom Culture: In what ways have you created a strong classroom in which students feel invested, empowered, and connected?
• Instructional Rigor: In what ways does your classroom culture, planning, and instruction push students' cognitive lift, quality responses, and intentional use of time?
• Inclusion and Relevance: How is your classroom inclusive of and/or relevant to the students that you serve?
• Extended Impact: How have you directly impacted your school, the community it serves, and/or our network outside of your classroom?

These Distinguished Teachers applied for the program in January, first submitting written narratives and a portfolio of artifacts including comprehensive data. Finalists then participated in classroom observations and debriefs, student surveys, a panel interview, and reference checks over the course of four months. Read more about the rigorous application process, and unique program aspects here: https://nobleschools.org/careers/distinguished-teacher/   

Facts about this group of Distinguished Teacher recipients:

• Average of 11 completed years of teaching experience in the classroom and 8 years teaching at Noble
• Represent 12 of Noble's 18 campuses
• Subjects taught include: Band, English, MJROTC, Math, Physical Education, Science, Social Studies, Spanish, Special Education

"What we learned in our external and internal work is that great teaching is complex, there's no single data-point or observation rubric that can identify it, and there's a diverse range of ways in which people achieve incredible impact with students," said Kyle Cole, chief academic officer at Noble. "This premier group of educators will serve to inform teacher development and support at Noble moving forward, raising our collective impact on the students we serve."

Tanya Klinkhachorn, director of talent at Noble, added, "We want Noble to be a place that teachers know they can have a long-term career in the classroom. The Distinguished Teacher program is an important step toward this being a reality for even more of our incredible educators."

The Distinguished Teacher designation will come with several clearly defined benefits:

• An additional $10,000 award on top of base salary, as determined by the Noble Salary Schedule, each year for the duration of employment as a teacher at Noble;
• Opportunities to engage in professional development specific to Distinguished Teachers as well as facilitate professional development experiences across the Noble Network;
• Unique opportunities to participate in network-wide decisions across functions;
• Participation in the selection of future Distinguished Teachers.

"Noble has fostered an ever-changing approach to teaching that matches the limitless potential of our students," said Metz. "Distinguished Teacher will allow us to take this approach to a new level by highlighting the people, codifying the practices, and then leveraging Distinguished Teachers to collaborate or train others. We know the impact on classrooms across our network and beyond will be immense."

Jones concluded, "Noble has continuously raised the bar in education, from our interim assessments, college tools, and ACT results to our high school culture and health and fitness programs. We feel strongly that Distinguished Teacher will soon be added to this list as a program for recognizing and retaining top talent, identifying and rewarding a diverse definition of classroom excellence, and codifying and learning from incredible teaching."

About the Noble Network of Charter Schools
At Noble, we are college bound. Noble's college program exposes our students to higher education options and guides them through the collegiate application process. Through college trips, college fairs, summer college immersion programs and a required year-long college writing course, Noble demystifies the college experience and shapes students' beliefs and confidence about higher education. http://www.nobleschools.org

Contact:
[email protected]

SOURCE Noble Network of Charter Schools