Licensing Process

This entry focuses solely on what I have found out about the process of becoming a teacher in Massachusetts.

Please note that these requirements are only relevant to teach in the public school system. Private schools do not have these requirements, but they also pay less in salary and benefits.

The best resource is the website of the Department of Education. I have heard that getting somebody on the phone to help you is harder than squeezing a camel through the eye of a needle, so the DoE made it up to you by having all of the information you could possibly need on their website.

The first thing I did was make myself a spreadsheet (of course) of the different subject matters I might be qualified to teach or interested in teaching, and summarized the requirements for each subject. Click here for the list of requirements.

Through this process, I found out about the different licensing types: Preliminary, Initial, Professional and Temporary.

I thought I would naturally fall into the Professional one: I am a professional, after all. Wrong! I am not a Professional teacher. Here is a description of each license available (these are extracted exactly from the requirements page):

Preliminary License – A teacher license issued to a person who holds a bachelor’s degree and has passed the Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure (MTEL) and met other eligibility requirements. (Preliminary Vocational Technical Teacher license is a teacher license issued to a person who has met certain educational, employment experience and for certain areas occupational license/certification requirements and passed a performance test and other required tests).
Initial License – An educator license issued to a person who has completed a bachelor’s degree, passed the Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure, completed a professional preparation program approved by the Commissioner, and met other eligibility requirements. (Initial Vocational Technical Administrator license is a license issued to a person who has a bachelor’s degree and another educator license, certain employment experience and who has passed certain tests). (Initial Vocational Technical Cooperative Education Coordinator license is a license issued to a person who has a Vocational Technical Teacher/Administrator license or certain business/industry experience and who has completed an internship and passed a communication and literacy test).
Professional License – An educator license issued to a person who has met the requirements for an Initial license, completed a Performance Assessment Program or an appropriate master’s degree program, and met other requirements. (Professional Vocational Technical Teacher license is license issued to a person who possesses a Preliminary license has completed certain college courses, employment and induction program requirements). (Professional Vocational Technical Administrator and the Cooperative Education Coordinator license is issued to a person who possesses an Initial license and who has completed employment and induction program requirements).
Temporary License – An educator license issued to a person who holds a valid license or certificate of a type comparable to at least an Initial license in Massachusetts from another state or jurisdiction, and who has been employed under such license for a minimum of three years but has not satisfied the Massachusetts testing requirements.

I also found this nifty video where a private industry professional asks questions about career change. It was really helpful!

Now that I know which license applies to me (Preliminary), I can go back to the requirements page and select the subjects and find out the requirements for them. This is what my spreadsheet looks like:

So it appears that teaching Business is the fastest license to get for me. It doesn’t require credited courses or anything else beyond the corresponding MTEL.

Now let’s talk about the MTEL. The MTEL website is also very helpful. They even have a checklist of things you need to keep in mind. First you must know the requirements for your area. For example, to get my license on the three topics I want to become licensed in, I need to take these tests:

Communications & Literacy (Field 01)
Technology/Engineering (Field 33)
Business (Field 19)

Total cost: $350

The next thing is knowing when the tests are offered. They each take 4 hours to complete. Some are offered only in the morning, others only in the afternoon, so you MIGHT be able to fit two tests in one day, but you might not. The Communications & Literacy test is comprised of two tests: Reading and Writing (4 hours each), so you would take a full day for that test alone (half in the morning, half in the afternoon).

The tests are offered every 2 or 3 months, with the exception of the Communications & Literacy test, which is offered more often, since it’s a requirement for all license types.

The grades are released a month or so after the test, with some pre-announced delays possible.

You might or might not have a requirement to take a teaching/curriculum course/seminar recognized by the DoE to get your license, as it is required for my Instructional Technolody and Engineering licenses. This is a confusing requirement that I have not figured out yet. I found an entire list of credited programs on the DoE site, but these are for obtaining the Initial license so they are 36-credit programs that cost from $5K to $18K and take 18 months or longer to complete. I haven’t found out exactly what the credits/seminar requirement is for the Preliminary, but I’ll let you know when I do. Here’s a place to start.

Once you’ve gathered your requirements, you can go back to the DoE website and create an account on the ELAR system. You can apply for your license there.

If I actually manage to get my license (for any of hte topics) by March/April, I’ll be able to apply for jobs for the fall semester. That’s when the postings start to appear. A good site to look for jobs is SchoolSpring.com. I hear that retiring teachers don’t have a deadline to annoucne whether they are going abck or not the following year, so openings due to retirmenet can appear at any time. Regular teachers who leave due to transfers, moves, or career changes have to announce it in the spring. Keep in mind that schools will look internally first, so jobs might not be easy to get for outsiders.

That’s it for the requirements. I hope you found this helpful an stick around t hear how this actually played out.

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