Keeping Our Best Teachers: Touching Tomorrow
North Carolina’s teachers are critical to the success of student learning. Yet every year, thousands of teachers leave the profession, drained by the demands of the public school classroom and lack of professional support. Teacher attrition costs the nation billions of dollars and is an incalculable loss to our society’s children.
NCCAT is a recognized national leader in professional development programming for teachers. Established by the state legislature in 1985, NCCAT provides a year-round curriculum of intensive cross-disciplinary seminars in the sciences, arts, humanities, technology, leadership, communication, and health and wellness. NCCAT is a place where teachers “advance teaching as an art and a profession” through a wide range of experiential study and learning opportunities. NCCAT keeps good teachers teaching.
Each year, nearly 5,000 teachers participate in residential seminars and professional development programs at the center’s campus locations in Cullowhee and on Ocracoke, returning to their schools with recharged interest and a more positive attitude toward teaching, which in turn improves the quality of public education in North Carolina.