Dr. Nancy Everhart, associate professor at The Florida State University School of Library & Information Studies in Tallahassee, Florida has been chosen by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) to co-chair a committee composed of a select national group of educators to assure the National Board’s Library Media Standards reflect the best practices and latest research in the field.

 As part of the National Board’s mission to provide leading standards for what accomplished teachers should know and be able to do, NBPTS Standards Committees are periodically formed to review the standards. The 12-member committee, which includes six National Board Certified Teachers, was chosen from a pool of 425 applicants.

 “I’m honored to be a part of this group that will be impacting policy and practices in the school media field for years to come,” said Everhart. “The National Board sets the standard for quality teaching in the United States and I have focused our Project LEAD leadership program for school library media specialists at FSU on its tenets.” Everhart serves as the director of the school media program at Florida State University and co-directs Project LEAD, an IMLS initiative that prepares school library media specialists for leadership roles via National Board Certification. Project LEAD is the only American Library Association (ALA) accredited program focusing on leadership and National Board Standards in Library Media in the U.S.; it is also accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and the Florida Department of Education.

 “Dr. Everhart is a leader in education and brings a commitment of excellence to the university she works in and more importantly, to the students she serves,” said Joan Auchter, chief program officer, NBPTS. “By overseeing the accomplished teaching standards, her work will serve as the foundation for the assessment in the National Board Certification process in Library Media.”   

Everhart was recently elected as president-elect of American Association of School Librarians (AASL), a division of the American Library Association and the nation’s only association for school library media professionals with nearly 10,000 members. She will assume its presidency in June 2010. She is a member of the board of directors of the Florida Association for Media in Education. Learn more about Dr. Nancy Everhart.

For more information about National Board Certification, visit www.nbpts.org.