At the Charles Butt Foundation, our mission is rooted in the belief that every student in Texas deserves a high-quality education. Teachers are the heart of that mission. Through the Texas Teachers Collaborative (TTC) initiative, we support teachers to engage in relevant, rigourous, reflective professional development—because when teachers grow, students thrive.
To do so, we support educators through the National Board Certification (NBC) process. For some, the journey doesn’t end with certification; it evolves into a mission of growing and building (pick either growing or building) teacher leaders.
In this blog, we highlight Sarah Moulden, an English Teacher at Cleburne High School and a TTC mentor, who views her certification not as a completed work, but as an “exclamation point” that started a whole new chapter, one defined not only by personal achievement, but by generosity.
For Sarah, the road to becoming a National Board Certified Teacher (NBCT) was more like writing a trilogy than a short story. Some of the first lines of her professional narrative were penned a decade ago in Godley Independent School District (ISD) through a research grant focused on technology integration and reflective practice.
As part of that grant, Sarah met weekly with a mentor to share lesson plans and reflect on her work. “Meeting weekly with my mentor started me on a pathway of reflective teaching,” Sarah shares. “We discussed my students, my goals, hits and misses in my instruction, and my next steps.”
This commitment to reflection followed her to Wheat Middle School in Cleburne ISD. At the time, the campus was navigating a TEA school improvement plan. As Department Chair, Sarah helped lead the Professional Learning Community (PLC) process, focusing on a protocol that mirrors the “Architecture of Accomplished Teaching”: knowing where students are, setting high expectations, and constantly refining instruction based on results.
The results of that dedication were transformative: The campus improved from an “F” rating to a “B” during that several-year process. This is the power of a teacher who refuses to stop asking, “How do I get better?”
When Cleburne ISD introduced National Board Certification as a pathway to the Teacher Incentive Allotment, Sarah’s curiosity took over. While the year of certification was demanding and challenging, it served as a powerful validation of the practices she was continuing to develop in the classroom.
“National Board Certification gave me the language of accomplished teaching and the ability to articulate skilled and strategic practices,” Sarah notes. “I logged in [to check my scores] at 3:30 am, and the fireworks were popping on the screen. I took a video, and in the background, you can hear me sobbing. Tears of relief, but also tears of pride.”
For Sarah, the certification was the exclamation point on a long journey of growth. But once that chapter was finished, a new question emerged: How do I give back?
The answer came through the Texas Teachers Collaborative. Despite a touch of “imposter syndrome” while waiting for her final scores, Sarah jumped at the chance to serve as a mentor for other certification candidates navigating a complex and intricate process.
Over the last 18 months, Sarah has “poured into” teacher candidates from Cleburne ISD, Venus ISD, and Morgan Mill ISD. This mentorship is the heartbeat of the TTC—a living cycle where those who have earned excellence, like Sarah, turn around and extend their hand to those walking the same path.
“I am getting an opportunity to lead teachers and guide them in reflecting and refining their teaching practices,” she says. “Just like students, each of the candidates is unique, and I adjust my approach to their needs.”
Sarah Moulden’s story is not a story about certification; it is a story about what certification unlocks in a person who was already driven to grow, already committed to students, already willing to do hard things in quiet ways.
As we look ahead to cohort 2, Sarah’s story offers the clearest picture of what TTC is about. National Board Certification gave her language, validation, and pride—and her first instinct was to share it. That impulse to give back and reach for the hand of the teacher beside you is at the heart of this work. We are deeply humbled to work alongside educators like Sarah, and excited about this next chapter of TTC.
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