State program eases license rules to lure back former teachers

Sometimes all it takes is an invitation and a little something to sweeten the pot.

The Arkansas Department of Education is asking formerly state-licensed teachers to consider regaining their state credentials for a possible return to work in the classroom.

Any former teachers heeding that call between now and March 31 can get that state license after completion of 36 hours of professional training -- much or all of it online and free of charge. That's instead of the typically required 60 hours of training.

The state's "Teach Again! Reignite Your Passion for Teaching" campaign kicked off last month. The initiative "focuses on touching on those passions and excitement that made a person want to be an educator in the first place," said Ivy Pfeffer, assistant commissioner for educator effectiveness and licensure.

To date, some 150 people have begun the process of regaining their state licenses.

Rachel Cole, an education consultant and former director of teacher leadership development for the Teach for America organization, is one of the applicants. She hasn't been a classroom teacher since 2006.

"I am seeking a renewal now because I would like the option to return to the classroom, and because I want to continue to work with teachers to help them grow in their classroom leadership and effectiveness," Cole said in an email. "I believe that having a valid license is part of having credibility with the teachers I would like to work with and the parents of students I would like to serve."

Cole said the fact that she can take the training online makes it possible for her to pursue the license that she would not be able to do otherwise.

Pamela Rhoads of Trumann in northeast Arkansas works in the computer networking field. She had let her teaching license lapse and regretted it, fearing that a chapter in her life was over.

"This is a golden opportunity for me to actually take steps to correct that error," Rhoads said. "At this point I'm not sure if I will try to go immediately back into the classroom, but I will be prepared if that is an avenue that presents itself."

Jane Slocum and her husband, David, of Rogers in Northwest Arkansas also have begun the process of regaining their teacher licenses. Because they are both over age 62, they are eligible for lifetime licenses that are issued without the typical $75 application fee and won't require renewal in the future.

Retiring in 2012 after 33 years as an English and oral communications teacher, Jane Slocum has worked more recently with the Miss Arkansas pageant system to help contestants with their interviewing skills. David Slocum left teaching in 1984 -- he was a band director -- to become a businessman. But he kept his license current for many years before letting it expire.

"It's a no-brainer," Jane Slocum said about taking advantage of the Teach Again initiative. "I can go through this process one time, have a lifetime license and then -- should the opportunity, the desire or the need arise to enter the teaching profession again -- I can."

The Teach Again campaign comes at a time when the numbers in Arkansas' teacher preparation programs -- traditional college programs and even nontraditional preparation programs -- have dropped precipitously.

In 2010, there were 8,255 people enrolled in all Arkansas educator preparation programs. That number fell by more than half to 3,944 last school year, and it is about 3,445 this school year, according to data provided by Pfeffer and her staff at the state Education Department.

Even among those who complete the preparation programs in any one year, as many as 40 percent do not immediately take teaching jobs in the state's public schools. There were 2,177 completers of education preparation programs in 2014-15 (down from 6,161 in 2012-13). After one year, only 1,220 of those newly prepared teachers were employed in the state's public schools -- far short of the average 3,000 first-year teachers typically hired in a year by Arkansas' public schools.

Dozens of school districts in the past couple of years have turned to the use of state-granted waivers to fill their classroom vacancies. The waivers allow the districts to employ people who did not complete teacher preparation programs and do not have state teacher licenses, but they do have college degrees and expertise in specific subject areas.

The Teach Again campaign is one of several efforts being made to increase the state's teacher pool. That includes the formation of teacher cadet programs in high schools.

The idea for Teach Again was inspired by a highway billboard that Pfeffer saw near her home in Pocahontas in northeast Arkansas that called for long-absent church members to "come home."

"That just stuck in the back of my mind," she said. She recalled it later when Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key said he wished that the agency could reach out to people whose licenses had expired, particularly those who started in the profession with the now-discontinued three-year "initial licenses" and who never obtained standard five-year licenses.

"Well, why can't we?" Pfeffer thought in response. "Why can't we reach out to people who have had their licenses expire or who never converted to the standard license or who maybe got caught in a transition time when licensure levels changed and it didn't fit what they needed?"

Pfeffer and her team concluded that such an appeal was possible and that by working with other sections of the Education Department the whole relicensing process -- including the required training -- could be put online and streamlined for the ease of the applicants.

"A lot of times when you just tell people 'go online and apply, do your background check and do 36 hours of P.D. and you're fine' -- they don't know where to start. We wanted to create a starting place, and we wanted to make it easy and personalized."

People interested in the program are invited to go to the Teach Again link on the Arkansas Education Department's website: arkansased.gov.

They are asked to answer about a half-dozen basic questions: name, address, email address, phone number and date of birth.

Janice Calaway, a policy development coordinator at the Education Department, checks daily for responses and contacts responders to provide each with an appropriate application, along with information about the $75 application fee, the background check process and the professional development training.

Candidates can choose professional development courses based on their backgrounds and needs, but the Education Department staff has put together suggested packages of courses that might be appropriate for people who haven't been working in the profession in recent years.

Training on dyslexia awareness or on the educator code of ethics might be appropriate topics, Pfeffer said, as would be the state's new science standards, classroom management or disciplinary literacy.

"If you have been out of the education field for five or six years, the term disciplinary literacy is probably not very familiar to you," Pfeffer said about the practice of teaching across all subjects.

Current rules require people who have been without state teaching licenses for more than one year to take 60 clock hours of training. For a limited time -- through the Teach Again program -- the requirement is 36 hours, which is the number that currently working teachers must complete to renew their licenses.

"We know that it's not about the number of hours, but it's about the quality of the learning," Pfeffer said about altering the training requirement, at least temporarily. "We kind of looked at it like, if you have been out for five years, let's bring you back. You will have to get 36 hours in order to get your license. Once you are hired for the next school year, you will be getting additional professional development or you will be getting support through mentoring.'

"It wasn't really about the hours," she said. "It was about 'Let's give people the opportunity.'"

Jane Slocum said it has been hard for teachers who leave teaching to keep their licenses current because of a lack of access to the regular training that is required.

"Most school districts offer professional development as part of their normal school year for their employees. If you are not teaching -- if you are out of teaching -- it is very difficult to maintain your license because you don't have professional development readily available," she said. "That's why so many teachers, I believe, allow their licenses to lapse -- because they can't keep up with the professional development hours that are required.

"Now that there are only 36 hours required, and they are available free and online, it's just a no-brainer," she said. "They have made it as easy as it is going to get to be able to come back and teach again."

Pfeffer said the Education Department has not set a goal or a cap on the number of teachers to be relicensed, nor limited the licensing to teachers in any one part of the state or a particular subject area.

"We just hope there will be a lot," she said.

Pfeffer also said the Teach Again campaign is not an act of desperation to get teachers into schools.

"That wasn't the intent at all. The intent was 'Hey, we have some untapped talent out there," she said.

"We've got resources that we really aren't using, and they really probably just need an invitation to come home and come back.'"

Metro on 12/11/2016

Upcoming Events