ACSA has reached out to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to express our collective support for those impacted by the wildfires in Southern California. We are all saddened by the destructive impact the fires have wrought on the homes, lives and living conditions of everyone in the region.

In support of efforts to maintain some level of continuity in the pursuit of credential programs for both teachers and administrators, ACSA has recommended that the Commission on Teacher Credentialing take appropriate steps within their authorization to modify credentialing requirements in order that the current number of teachers and administrators may complete their final year of preparation.

The commission’s authority to waive, modify or provide flexibilities around credential requirements is limited and requirements that are in statute may not be modified by the commission. Given the limitations within its authority, the CTC approved the following actions to assist final year candidates impacted by the fires:

Teaching Performance Assessment: The commission approved a motion to credit a candidate that has passed a commission-approved Teaching Performance Assessment and completed a specified minimum number of hours of clinical practice (to be determined). The commission would deem that these candidates have met the required clinical practice hours. These candidates would not be required to complete the full 600 hours of clinical practice, and this would be noted on the Individual Development Plan (IDP) that the candidate and preliminary program develop for the new teacher to take to their induction program.

Formal observations: The commission approved the suspension or elimination (to be determined) of the specified number of formal observations while still maintaining the requirement that each candidate must be supervised and supported in clinical practice by delegating the responsibility for the determination of sufficient supervision for a candidate to the commission-approved program.

Solo or final student teaching: The commission may suspend the four-week solo teaching requirement and rely on commission-approved teacher preparation programs to ensure that candidates have had sufficient opportunities to independently work with students.

Teacher and administrator induction: The commission affirmed that the 2024-25 year of participation in induction is a full year, even though the school year has been interrupted by the wildfire crisis.

These options are only for candidates who are on track to complete their educator preparation program between Jan. 7 and Sept. 1, 2025.

Initial recommendations of TPA Workgroup In August 2024, the CTC adopted a charge for a workgroup to review the design and implementation of commission-adopted Teaching Performance Assessments. The workgroup focused on five specific sections of Education Code section 44320.4, which defined the key areas for developing recommendations for the commission.

Focus Area 1: An analysis of any modifications needed to current assessments to ensure they are valid and authentic to the work of teaching, reasonable to implement in the wide range of classroom settings across the state, and appropriate for beginning teachers. [44320.4(c)(1)]

Focus Area 2: Recommendations for how programs might embed the assessments into coursework and clinical work to avoid duplicative work for candidates. [44320.4(c)(2)]

Focus Area 3: Recommendations to strengthen the accreditation system to ensure programs embed the assessment in coursework and clinical work, offer sufficient clinical and pedagogical support, and support candidates to pass the assessment. [44320.4(c)(4)]

Focus Area 4: Recommendations for how programs can engage in local scoring of the assessment to inform program improvement. [44320.4(c)(5)]

Focus Area 5: Suggested questions for program completer surveys to understand candidate experience of programmatic support for assessment completion. [44320.4(c)(3)]

The restructuring of the Teaching Performance Assessments is a huge, time-consuming task. The workgroup literally dismantled the current structure and is in the process of rebuilding the TPA model from the ground up. The initial draft of recommendations was very substantial for each of the aforementioned focus areas and rather overwhelming for the commissioners as well as other professionals. In the interest of making substantial, formative change to the teacher preparation process, the commission requested the workgroup to submit streamlined, focused and actionable recommendations for the commission’s review. The unintended consequences should not place additional burden on commission staff in order to implement the final recommendations.

The workgroup will bring the next iteration of the recommendations to the CTC at the April meeting with final recommendations to be presented at the June CTC meeting.

Early Child Development Permit Workgroup field survey update In August 2023, a Child Development Permit Workgroup was appointed to review and make final recommendations regarding the requirements for earning a Child Development Permit (CDP) authorizing service to children age birth to 8 in state-subsidized childcare and development programs. The proposed updates to the CDP are intended to be part of a comprehensive and aligned approach to the preparation of the early childhood workforce.

The Child Development Permit Workgroup developed initial recommendations for three levels of teaching permits as well as two levels of administrator permits. Detailed descriptions of the teacher permit recommendations are available on the CTC website. The following is a summary of the Child Development Permit workgroup recommendations for administrator permits (full information is available online).

Early Childhood Administrator 1 Permit: An ECA 1 would be authorized to supervise an early learning and child development program at a single site in the care, development and instruction of children, and provide guidance and supervision to ECE 1, 2, and 3 staff serving in the role of the teacher of record at that single program site. It would require an associate degree in early childhood education or child development or a related field including three or more semester units of supervised clinical experience and a minimum of two semester units of coursework in adult supervision and six semester units in ECE administration.

Early Childhood Administrator 2 Permit: An ECA 2 development program operating at multiple sites in the care, development, and instruction of children and to provide guidance and supervision to ECE 1, 2, 3, and ECA 1 staff. It would require a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education or child development or a related field including three or more semester units of supervised clinical experience or equivalent; two semester units of coursework in adult supervision or equivalent, and six semester units in ECE administration or equivalent.

Teacher supply In anticipation of the commission’s release of the upcoming 2023-24 Teacher Supply Report at the April meeting, ACSA is urging the commission to accelerate the implementation of cost effective credentialing solutions that will help districts hire and retain highly qualified candidates and provide flexibility for substitutes for vacancies as well as teacher leaves.

1. ESL Adult Education teachers: Certification holders with more than one year of teaching experience could be given the ability to get a clear credential without delay with the stipulation that they are to teach only in ESL programs.

2. CTE teachers: Attracting CTE teachers, who often make a higher income in their respective industries, will continue to be an issue without innovative incentive opportunities and partnerships. It’s also problematic for LEAs to recruit CTE teachers if they are unable to offer them Full Time Equivalency (FTE). School leaders need flexibility to adequately staff their schools and the inability to offer an FTE position and allow the CTE teacher to teach these courses add to staffing challenges.

3. Out-of-state Pupil Personnel Services (PPS): PPS holders should be granted an automatic preliminary PPS Credential so they can transition to California and begin serving students immediately. The recently enacted flexibility for certificated credentials serves as a roadmap for the state to make this policy change.

4. 60-day substitute flexibility: This flexibility was utilized for three years during the pandemic and expired last summer. Current law allows a general education substitute teacher to serve in a single classroom for a maximum of 30 days and a special education substitute teacher for a maximum of 20 days. The 60-day substitute authorization reduces the number of substitute teachers needed to staff a school classroom and creates better continuity for students, substitutes and the returning teacher on record.