A Superintendent Submits... Certification Audit

A LYS Superintendent submits the following:

SC,

This information needs to get out soon. I have yet to find a campus administrator in a small district that knows this information.

Each district or campus needs to do a campus level review of employee certification. Do this in an Excel spreadsheet and update it yearly. The link to SBEC VirtCert is:

http://www.sbec.state.tx.us/sbeconline/virtcert.asp

Most people are familiar with the certification site and use it frequently. Once you have this information, you will need details of teaching assignments, which means master schedules for secondary schools and teaching assignments for elementary schools.

Next, you need the following document:

http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index2.aspx?id=5830&menu_id=865&menu_id2=794

Once you arrive at this page, find the link that says Teacher Assignment Chart.

This chart is broken down by grade level: elementary, middle school, and high school. Note that middle schools are further broken down into Self Contained and Departmentalized. My guess is virtually every junior high out there is Departmentalized.

Now, look at the teaching assignment in the left column, and then look at which certificates are valid to teach the listed course. DO NOT DEVIATE. The language on the certificate MUST exactly match the language in the Certification column. Some certificates have very similar wording, but can not be used to teach the exact same subjects.

This process gets tricky because many teachers hold certificates that are no longer available. DO NOT ASSUME that because an old certificate seems very similar to a more currently issued certificate that the two certificates entitle the teachers in question to teach the exact same courses. In many cases this is not true.

For example, there are some older Theater certifications that can be used to teach speech, and there are some more current Theater certifications that may not be eligible to teach speech. If in doubt call SBEC.

Review your teachers for each class they are assigned. If everthing matches up, that's great. If not, develop a corrective action plan and fix it this year. You may find some people need to go take certification tests, so I would do this soon so as to give them time to resolve any problems.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com! http://tinyurl.com/4ydqd4t

Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation

Attend the LYS presentations at the Texas School Improvement Conference on 10/26/11 and 10/27/11

Confirmed 2012 Presentations: NASSP Conference; NASB Conference