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New Licensure Regulations from August 2007 through July 2008

KSDE has been reviewing several measures to ease "barriers to licensure" during the past two years. After receiving comments from K-12 schools, colleges, teachers and the public, these proposals were approved. We want to explain some of the regulations that we believe will be of greatest interest to KU students and alumni. We will update this as more details arrive:

1. Any licensed teacher may add an endorsement by simply passing the appropriate Subject Exam in any area except Elementary, Early Childhood, Special Education or the Administrative licenses (like Building Leadership, Reading Specialist, etc.). This is a significant change. No longer do you need proof of courses, a methods class, or “completion of an approved program.” Just pass the Subject Exam, download the Form 22 from the KSDE web site, and submit it directly to KSDE. For example, a middle level math teacher may add Math 6-12 simply by passing the secondary Math exam. A teacher with Spanish 7-12 may add ESOL PK-12 by simply passing the exam. A Physics teacher may add Math by simply passing the exam. And so on.
2. New teachers can now get a One-Year-Nonrenewable License without an existing offer of employment. This means that any person completing an "initial" licensure program can go ahead and apply for the one year license even if they don't have passing licensure exam scores.
3. A Provisional License may be issued at any level, regardless of the level of the existing license. This has been an issue recently for Elementary K-6 or K-9 teachers who are working on the ESOL PK-12 program through KU, since PK-12 is the only level we offer for this endorsement. Individuals did not qualify for provisional license in the past; they will now, assuming they have 50% of the ESOL courses completed (including methods course) and need the provisional for an ESOL job.
4. If you are an alum with an expired Kansas license, KSDE will be able to issue you a one-year "transitional license" so you can go back to teaching immediately while you take courses to renew the expired license. In the past, you had to complete 6-8 credits before you could start teaching again on contract.
5. Effective early fall 2008, KSDE changed the name of the "conditional" license to an "initial" license, a logical improvement.
6. KPA, the Kansas Performance Assessment, was dropped starting Fall 2008 and replaced with a one-year on-the-job “mentoring” program which will enable teachers to upgrade to the 5-year Professional license.

If you have additional questions, feel free to contact the Licensure Officer for more information:

Alisa Branham abranham@ku.edu - updated February 2009