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Executive Function Professional Development for Schools
NBEFC offers a comprehensive 150-hour professional development program for special education and student support professionals. Participants learn to identify executive function barriers, select and apply evidence-informed strategies, support students within educational settings, and monitor student progress.
They receive documentation of 150 PD hours for self-submission to their district, licensing board, or professional association. Qualified participants are eligible to sit for the board examination to become a Board Certified Educational Executive Function Specialist.
Three-Seat PackageSingle seats and six-seat packages available · Purchased at the school level · 100% online
Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern Time · Press 3 for employer and group enrollment
Start With the Free Classroom Tool
The Classroom Executive Function Guidance Framework is a free, five-minute version of the system your staff master in the program. Try it on a student today.
The Free Classroom Tool
A teacher rates a student on 24 statements across eight areas: getting started, staying focused, managing time, thinking before acting, managing emotions, finishing tasks, remembering and keeping track, and adapting and shifting thinking. It takes about five minutes and returns specific techniques based on the ratings, with results that can be printed or saved. Provided at no cost for individual classroom instructional use.
The Full System Your Staff Earn
The Neurocognitive EFTech System™, Educational Specialist Edition, is the complete version. A 64-item Functional Skills Screener is completed online by the student or the parent and returns a scored report to your staff member, with each executive function area scored and color-coded by severity, so the screening and scoring that used to take hours of observation and write-up is done before the first conversation. The system then recommends techniques for the areas that need them from a library of 137, each with a manual written for educators and school settings, and generates personalized handouts, written by age group, that explain to the parent how to do each technique at home. Your special education staff get the scoring; the family gets the worksheet; the teacher gets a next step.
Funded With Money Your School Already Holds
Schools and districts fund NBEFC’s program as professional development through federal and local sources they already manage.
Title II, Part A
Professional development funds for improving the quality and effectiveness of teachers and other school staff.
IDEA Part B
Special education funds, including personnel preparation and professional development for staff serving students with disabilities.
Title IV, Part A
Student Support and Academic Enrichment funds, including the well-rounded education and safe and healthy students allowable uses.
Title I Schoolwide
Schoolwide program funds used for professional development that supports the school’s improvement plan.
Local Professional Development Budgets
Building and district professional development lines, used the same way they fund any outside PD provider.
Everything Your Business Office Needs
The School Packet includes the program overview, the full curriculum, the credentialing structure, pricing and payment options, and an administrator FAQ, written for the person who approves the purchase order. NBEFC provides a W-9 and invoice or purchase order documentation on request.
Download the School PacketWhat Your Staff Learn
The curriculum is written for educators, in educational scope. It trains your staff to work with executive function in your school, with their students and alongside their teachers. There is nothing in it about running a business.
1. Foundations of Executive Function
The definitions, models, and components of executive function, including working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility, and how they show up in classwork and routines. How executive function develops from the preschool years through later adulthood, and how stress, culture, and environment shape it.
2. The Neuroscience of Executive Function
The brain systems that make executive function possible, and the research methods and plasticity principles that determine how far that knowledge can be trusted and applied in teaching. Staff learn to choose supports based on the process behind a behavior, not just the behavior itself.
3. Executive Function in Educational Settings
How executive function shapes learning, achievement, and behavior in schools. Classroom supports, curriculum design approaches, and how school teams, family partnerships, and progress measurement coordinate support for students at all levels, including those with learning differences.
4. Beliefs, Behavior, and Executive Function
What happens between a support being taught and a support being used. How students’ beliefs, predictions, and self-talk about schoolwork decide whether a planner, starting routine, or organization system lasts, and how educators respond through instruction, accurate feedback, and structured starts.
5. Applied Executive Function Strategies
Choosing a technique for a particular student in a particular setting, teaching its steps in order, adapting it by grade level and setting, and measuring whether it works, all within educational scope. The techniques come from the Neurocognitive EFTech System, each with its own Educational Specialist Edition manual written for educators and school settings.
6. Ethics in Executive Function Practice
The seven core principles of the NBEFC Code of Ethics, scope of role, boundaries with students and families, informed consent and student assent, confidentiality and the protection of education records, cultural competence, and structured ethical decision-making.
7. Cognitive and Emotional Influences on Executive Function
How students’ beliefs about schoolwork, and the emotional states around it, shape whether a support can be used at all. The Executive Function Performance Cycle, learned helplessness and self-efficacy, and how to tell a strategy that failed from a barrier that kept a sound strategy from being used, applied across complex student profiles with the Five-Step Integrated EF Coaching Decision Framework.
8. Executive Function Coaching Practice
The scope of coaching and how to keep the school role separate from it. Core skills, intake and assessment, designing and running an engagement, and working with students and families from childhood through adulthood. This domain is examined and earns the second credential; it does not change what staff do in your building.
How It Helps You Keep Special Education Staff
Special education staff leave when the work outpaces the tools. This program changes what they have to work with.
A System for the Hardest Part of the Job
Executive function is behind the student who cannot start, cannot organize, and cannot follow through, and it is the part of the caseload most staff were never trained for. The program gives them what to try first, what to try next, and how to tell whether it is working.
A Credential That Recognizes Their Expertise
Board certification is earned by passing an independently proctored examination, not by attending. It is listed in a public registry with a unique credential ID and carries the NBEFC-ES designation. For a special educator, it is professional recognition that a workshop certificate is not.
An Investment Staff Can See
Funding board certification for a staff member is a visible commitment to their career, made with professional development money the school already holds. Staff who are invested in have a reason to stay invested.
A Community, Not a Solo Course
Your staff are placed together in a community to talk and support each other through the program, with weekly reminders to keep everyone engaged and a survey before and after the program for your feedback. Districts purchasing six or more seats get their own online cohort community.
Expertise That Spreads to Teachers
Board certified staff become the building’s resource on executive function: the person a general education teacher can bring a student to, with a shared framework and a shared vocabulary for what to try.
Recognition for the Organization
Any organization with five or more board certified staff receives the NBEFC-O Board Certified Organization credential, with a digital badge for the school’s website. Five or more board certified staff across a district make that district an NBEFC-O district.
From Professional Development to Board Certification
Completing the program makes qualified staff eligible to sit for the NBEFC board examination.
- 1The school purchases seats. NBEFC provides invoice or purchase order documentation and a W-9. Staff register in the student portal, the school sends NBEFC their names, and seats activate once payment has cleared.
- 2Staff complete the 150-hour program. 100% online, asynchronous, and self-paced, with 365 days of access. Most participants finish in 3 to 5 months working evenings or weekends, with no release time required. Lessons are delivered as illustrated text, audio, and NBEFC’s own condensed notes of each lesson.
- 3Staff receive documentation of 150 PD hours. Issued at completion for self-submission to the district, licensing board, or professional association. Check your board’s rules for self-submitted hours; acceptance is not guaranteed.
- 4Qualified staff sit for the board examination. Independently proctored online, 150 questions in 120 minutes, 75 percent required in each of eight domains, with five full practice examinations included and the exam fee covered.
- 5Staff who pass are board certified. Board Certified Educational Executive Function Specialist with the NBEFC-ES designation, reserved only for this certification, plus Board Certified Executive Function Coach, each with a unique credential ID in the NBEFC public registry. A bachelor’s degree or higher in education or a related field is required for the specialist credential and is verified after the examination. The credentials are issued in the staff member’s own name and follow them wherever they work.
What Each Seat Includes
Per Staff Member
- ✓ 150 Hours of Professional Development Written for Educators: Eight domains of illustrated lessons, audio lessons, and condensed lesson notes, with reflection questions and practice examinations
- ✓ Documentation of 150 PD Hours (15 CEU): Issued at completion for self-submission
- ✓ Unlimited access to the Neurocognitive EFTech System™, Educational Specialist Edition: The 64-item Functional Skills Screener with scored results, 137 techniques across four tiers, and unlimited personalized parent handouts by age group, with every technique manual written for educators and school settings
- ✓ 5 Full Randomized Practice Exams: Simulations that mirror the board examination format and difficulty
- ✓ Independently Proctored Board Examination, Fee Included: One exam, delivered and proctored through an independent third-party
- ✓ Two Board Credentials on Passing: Board Certified Educational Executive Function Specialist (NBEFC-ES) and Board Certified Executive Function Coach
- ✓ 2 Years of Public Registry Listing: Verified through NBEFC’s searchable registry with a unique credential ID
- ✓ Code of Ethics and Professional Standards: Required and enforceable
- ✓ 365 Days of Access: Full access to all course content for one year from activation; ADA compliant with closed captions
Per School
- ✓ A Community for Your Staff: Participants are placed together to talk and support each other through the program; districts purchasing six or more seats get their own online cohort community
- ✓ Weekly Reminders: Sent to participants to keep them engaged and on pace
- ✓ A Survey Before and After the Program: So the school has feedback on what changed
- ✓ Purchase Documentation: Invoice or purchase order documentation and a W-9 on request
- ✓ NBEFC-O Board Certified Organization Credential: Issued to any organization with five or more board certified staff, with a digital badge for the school’s website
Pricing for Schools
Seats can be used by staff anywhere in the district. Each school or district buys what it needs, and additional packages can be purchased separately over time.
One special education or student support professional.
Three staff members, from one school or across the district. Save $5,850 against three single seats.
Six staff members, from one school or across the district. Save $16,700 against six single seats. Six or more seats get their own online cohort community, and five or more board certified staff qualify the district for the NBEFC-O credential.
How to Pay
Card in the student portal, ACH, or check at any seat count. Net 30 terms on invoice, with a purchase order accepted, are available to organizations enrolling five or more. Seats activate once payment has cleared.
Invoices are issued by the National Board of Executive Function Certification, PO Box 9065, Lexington, OH 44904.
Questions Administrators Ask
“Is this a certification or professional development?”
It is professional development. Your school is funding 150 hours of executive function PD for special education and student support staff. Completing it makes qualified staff eligible to sit for the NBEFC board examination, and those who pass become board certified. The credential is issued in the staff member’s own name.
“Does it require release time?”
No. The program is 100% online, asynchronous, and self-paced. Most participants complete it in 3 to 5 months working evenings or weekends, and they have 365 days of access.
“Who on my staff qualifies?”
Special education and student support professionals: special education teachers, intervention specialists, coordinators, school counselors, school psychologists, and learning specialists. A bachelor’s degree or higher in education or a related field is required for the Board Certified Educational Executive Function Specialist credential and is verified after the examination.
“Is anything in it about coaching as a business?”
No. The school program is executive function professional development written for educators in educational scope. It trains staff to work with executive function in your school, with their students and alongside their teachers.
“Can we add seats later?”
Yes. Each package is a separate purchase, so a school can start with one seat or three and add packages as budget allows.
“What does the school get once staff are certified?”
Board certified staff who are the building’s trained resource on executive function, a before-and-after survey for your records, and, at five or more board certified staff, the NBEFC-O Board Certified Organization credential with a digital badge for the school’s website.
Bring Executive Function Expertise Into Your School
150 hours of professional development for special education and student support staff, funded with money your school already holds, leading to board certification.
Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern Time · Press 3 for employer and group enrollment