The International Schools Review Forum

Hi all,

I stumbled across this site a little while ago and I've been lurking for a fair few weeks now, wishing I'd had access to this accumulated wisdom and diversity of informed opinion at earlier points in my career.

To the issue at hand. I'm a new graduate of T-N, based in SE Asia. My question relates to renewing a Washington D.C Regular type II K - 6 license. OSSE cites inter alia: " A minimum of three (3) semester hours/45 clock hours of the professional development activities...directly related to the field (subject content) of the license being renewed. " Does anyone have any insight into regional (ideally based in SEA) P.D events/workshops that would meet this requirement? Ideally, I would like to take P.D that would help me hone my classroom skills and be more effective in the classroom, but at the very least I need to start banking my P.D hours.

I've started looking at EARCOS, but other than that I'm at something of a loss. Hopefully, the ISR gestalt can enlighten me. Cheers

One of the reasons I recommend DC is that OSSE is very liberal about what they will accept.
An easy place to start s contacting and enrolling in your local junior/community college back in your region of residence (in state tuition), you want a JC/CC that would preferably accept a lot of CLEP tests. As a primary IT who teaches everything you can comfortable take any course in the classical fields and use that for PD requirements. In-state CC/JC courses are some of the cheapest education credits you can get, you could fulfill your renewal requirements for very little coin.
Another inexpensive option is to take a CLEP test and then transfer that to the JC/CC transcript or take AP exams and transfer those to the JC/CC transcript.

There are of course IB workshops you could take , but they would be pricey given the number of hours you get. A lot of states have some form of PD learning/training online platform for various courses. Some of them are pricey some of them are free, you could piece together enough of those courses to meet your PD requirements.

What I would strongly recommend is that when you have two years of teaching experience post certification you apply for either NJ or CA certification and then you never have to worry about PD and renewal again, and/or apply for QTS.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge, PsyGuy. I'm not a U.S citizen, but I'll look into getting QTS after my two years experience.

@Amusing User Name

Applying for QTS by mutual recognition (reciprocity) has nothing to do with your origin of citizenship, but where you were trained. You are US trained so you qualify. There is no waiting period for QTS you may apply now.

The two years experience is what is required for CA and NJ certification.