Taking Advantage When I Can

There's a new change in special education certification requirements in New York, impacting special education teachers who teach special classes (like 12:1:1, 15:1, "self-contained" classes) in grades 7-12. It's causing a fair amount of stress and panic in my building, which appears to be most impacted by the change. 

Before 2004, you got certified as K-12 Special Education, and it covered every possible assignment. After 2004, you got certified 7-12 (or 5-9 extension), with a content specialty. Then they started offering the 7-12 Generalist, which was supposed to make you qualified for any assignment, but you also had the option of a content specialty. 

But now, you need to be certified in EVERY SUBJECT YOU TEACH, which means our teachers who teach the majority (or all) of the 12:1:1 program in 7th and 8th grades would have to be certified in math, English, social studies, AND science. Oh, unless you've taught 3 years or more in a special class, which none of us at my building have (the 12:1:1 program changed hands two years ago). And, since you usually want your most experienced teachers who "get" the specialized population of special classes, most of our teachers in these programs have the K-12 certification, with no content area specialty. 

Uh-oh. 

I teach just the one section of social studies, which I LOVE LOVE LOVE (surprisingly, as it was my most loathed class in high school), but I am not certified in Social Studies. I have the 7-12 Students with Disabilities: ELA certification, for which I had to take the English Content Specialty Test and have all the same requirements as a gen ed English teacher, PLUS all the special ed requirements. But social studies? Nope. 

For any of us to get certified in the other subjects, or to be considered "qualified" by the state after June 30, 2020, we have to do more than pay the $100 and have the district submit paperwork on our behalf (the 3+ years people can do that); we have to apply for a Limited Subject Area Extension that qualifies us for five years to teach the course, WHILE WE PURSUE THE FULL CERTIFICATION IN THAT AREA. Which means 18 college credit hours and passing a content specialty test. Which is a lot. 

This may seem like a good idea from a "let's get lots of qualified people out there," and I get what they're thinking, but does it make sense to have someone who is teaching a highly modified 8th grade physical science course in a special class to have to pass the PHYSICS content specialty test that high school physics teachers must take? It feels like for middle school it's a bit much. And it's being rolled out super fast. 

BUT, I don't want to lose the ability to teach the social studies. I love it, I love the kids, I love modifying but also preserving critical thinking skills and higher level concepts, and I would be so sad to lose this assignment because of the change. 

Which means, I'm willing to pursue the certification. 

The long and winding road to the title of this post is that the other teachers are around the same age (a bit younger) than me, but they have multiple small children. Their lives are hectic. I, on the other hand, do not. I have an increasingly hectic life, but I could fit this in and get the additional cert without a tremendous amount of sacrifice. I realize this is SUPER privileged of me, especially as another teacher who has no children but is younger and single would find it highly sacrificial to pursue this due to financial constraints. 

BUT, I feel like I have to grasp every advantage that I have as a result of not having children. Which makes teaching sound very Hunger-Games, and I'm not in to-the-death competition with my coworkers, but the complexities of the seniority list and being as marketable as possible so that I am less vulnerable to budget cuts ARE impacted by the kids/no kids dichotomy. For instance, I used to have a lot of people right around me on the seniority list, who would pass me as a clump rather quickly if I went out, say, on a maternity leave. I turned out not to ever have that opportunity, and so I have leapfrogged many of the people around me (including people above me) simply because I did not take any parental leave...and they did. 

Which may seem unfair, and it points to the inequities of taking parental leave (I sure didn't pass any men on that list) and the caretaking role women so often take on, but I didn't ask to NOT take maternity leave. Life feels unfair to me a lot of the time, so it's nice when there's a benefit to being childless not by choice. 

Anyway, in a far less than micro post, I guess I'll be boning up on my social studies skills and taking more classes and a big hairy test. I'm not really nervous about the test as I feel pretty confident that I could do well in it with my creepy memory and my ability to be a good test-taker, which is also an advantage. 

I've got to take them where I can, right? 

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