The Bellevue School District's schools and teachers have been landing on the top of a couple of national lists recently. Earlier this month, three Bellevue schools made U.S. News and World Report's 100 top high schools list. Bellevue's International School, Newport High and Bellevue High all made the top 100 -- and the International School was listed as 10th in the nation.

On Wednesday, Bellevue was 10th among all school districts in the country for the number of its teachers that received National Teachers Board certification. This year, 64 Bellevue teachers received the designation, bringing the number of teachers who are board-certified in Bellevue to 304. That's a solid 27 percent of the district's teachers.

Jeanne Harmon, executive director of the Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession, a Tacoma nonprofit, said encouraging Bellevue teachers to receive national certification was of special interest to former Superintendent Mike Riley.

Riley called Harmon one year to check how Bellevue was faring compared to other districts in the state. He hoped to learn that Bellevue had the highest percentage of board-certified teachers of any district. But Harmon had to dash his hopes, she said -- one of the teachers in a two-teacher district in the San Juan Islands had received board qualifications, so that district could claim that 50 percent of its teachers had the certification.

The district and its foundation, the Bellevue Schools Foundation, gives teachers a lot of support to help them complete the demanding certification process, which can take up to 400 hours to finish. For example, Bellevue helps teachers videotape lessons, one of the requirements of getting the national certification.

It's also worth noting that teachers who pursue board certification get support from the Washington Education Association, which has two programs, Jump Start and Home Stretch, that helps prepare teachers for the program.

Harmon thinks the number of nationally board-certified teachers in any school is a sign of quality. "It's not the only sign we have a good school, but it is a sign," she said. When a lot of teachers at one school have gone through the rigorous program, they often work to support each other and can provide a critical mass toward bringing all classroom teaching to a higher level, she said.

There does not appear to be a single location on the Web where you can go to find out how many teachers at a specific school have national board certification. But you can look up the names of all the teachers in a given district on the Web site of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Just enter the state, city and district, leave the rest blank, and hit "submit."