Resource teacher qualifications

When I lived in CA (91-97), I was required to get a Resource Specialist credential on top of my other special ed, general ed, and mathematics credentials before I could be a resource specialist. Counseling is an education credential. In the school system I worked in, we had a counselor who worked with small groups and individuals, as called for by their IEPs.

School counsellors are generally required to have a teaching certificate *plus* counselling courses, so she is at least officially qualified to teach.

Whether she is qualified to teach either special ed or math is another kettle of fish. There is a huge gap between rules on paper and actual implementation. The school can claim a special need and can fill the position with almost anyone.

In any case, as I’ve mentioned before, a lot of credentials for teaching aren’t worth the paper they are written on. Many education programs in college are worse than useless.

So, judge by the facts with an open mind. How does the class go? Is there some sign of consistent progress? Is your child learning new skills?

Well and there are states like I’m in (NM), where there are supposedly some no. of teachers that are not certified at all. I’m sure that is true in the rural areas. Of course they are *supposed* to have certified people, but they have so much trouble finding certified people that they give up after awhile.

—des

To Dover,

If you want to look up a particular California state teacher’s credentials, you can do it online, at

https://teachercred.ctc.ca.gov/teachers/index.jsp

Here in Colorado, resource teachers, counselers and regular ed teachers in the public schools all have education credentials. For awhile there was talk of allowing people with professional degrees to teach in the public schools, but they’d have to meet the credential requirements within some specified time (something like 3-4 years). If you’re child is in a private school, there is no credential requirement. The school itself decides what qualifications are needed

I wouldn’t *assume* it’s a bad deal — but I would scope out the situation. There are an awful lot of people thrust into special ed teaching duties with incredibly inadequate backgrounds — people who trained to teach profoundly disabled people who end up with LD kids who can’t read — but they know precious little about how to teach reading and most of that’s wrong.

Thanks for the replies. It turns out she does have a special ed credential, after all, so my concerns were not warranted. This is his first year in middle school, so I was a bit too ready to panic.

There are only 5 students in this class (math), which in itself is a major improvement over his elementary school. Keeping my fingers crossed.

To des — the whole thing about “This is a rural area and we can’t get qualified people” is just a classic smokescreen. There has been a glut of people with teaching credentials on the market since the 1970’s. And many of these people are willing, even eager, to explore new areas.

The fact is that school boards, especially rural school boards, are strong supporters of the status quo. They would much much rather hire a known quantity, somebody’s cousin or brother-in-law or niece, someone who knows the score in the town and won’t rock the boat, than bring in an outsider with radical ideas and attitudes. I’ve been that outsider far too often, and boy do you get frozen out by the old boy’s network. I’ve also gone to far, far too many interviews where it was clear that the hiring decision had already been made and the committee was just going through the motions for appearances and legalities.

Besides, that unqualified teacher is tremendously cheaper than a truly qualified person — sometimes as low as half the wages. You would have to pay thirty-five to forty thousand dollars to hire a person with a master’s degree and ten years’ experience, whereas giving a temporary certification to Joe’s cousin who did three years of college can get you off the hook for less than twenty thousand. And Joe’s cousin will be very grateful for the job and will go along with the way we’ve always done things here. What school board wouldn’t jump at the chance?

Every school board I’ve ever seen played this game — a former accountant who has never taught a classroom overnight replacing the principal of a large high school? a guy without a degree becoming the basketball coach then suddenly metamorphosing into the high school geography teacher? a guy who cannot speak English teaching it? — but it’s easier to get away with it in small towns and rural areas.