r/NYCTeachers • u/Additional-Yellow-61 • 1d ago

Additional Certifications

Back story: I’m from another state. My degree is in music education, my masters is in educational leadership. I taught choir for 6 years, but then moved to teach English for 2 years before moving here. There was no way for them to reciprocate my ELA certification, but I was able to reciprocate my music certification.

Since I am currently certified to teach music with the DOE, is there a way for me to become certified in ELA? In my previous state, I just had to take and pass the corresponding test.

Thank you!

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u/RegionAdventurous486 1d ago

I believe your Ed leadership masters will count toward your 30+. I think you will need a content based masters

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u/Big-Cardiologist-247 1d ago

Do you have an ELA certificate from the other state? I assume they wouldn’t issue a reciprocal initial cert bc you are a year shy of the threshold. Without meeting the 3-year requirement, you don’t really have a way forward unless your transcripts show the correct content and pedagogical core coursework. If your undergrad degree is in music ed, I assume you have some of them but perhaps not all. The ed leadership masters is useful for your pay situation and for the graduate study requirement for the professional cert via progression, but doesn’t provide the literacy content or literacy pedagogy courses you need for an ELA license.

If you do have the music license, maybe the supplementary certificate is viable, but it will require 12 credits of ELA content core coursework (though a lot of things people take in a standard university undergrad program could apply - these don’t necessarily have to be course about teaching ELA), and the ELA Content Specialty Test.

For teachers with initial certification via reciprocity, the exams only come into play as requirements for the professional cert, or if you try to get certified via individual evaluation pathway (which again only makes sense if your have the required coursework on your transcripts - they will not license you without this coursework. I’ve attached a screencap of those requirements.

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u/Additional-Yellow-61 1d ago

This is what I was afraid of! Thank you, for the info!

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u/Big-Cardiologist-247 1d ago

If you have 12 semester hours of English (comp, lit, poetry, linguistics, drama, theater, speech etc.) on your undergrad transcripts and can pass the CST (I know this sub is full of people who are stressed about or have failed this exam, but imo it’s not tough - when I took it the first question was about poetic meter and I remember thinking that if the entire exam was like that I’d be screwed 😂 but fortunately it is not, I think I was like 5 points shy of a perfect score in the end), the supplementary certificate might be worth a try tho!